My wife and I filed our 2021 taxes with TurboTax by filing a joint return. By filing this way we did receive the child tax credit but because of our joint income we were ineligible for the stimulus money. After submitting our tax return I later read an article that stated some couples could still benefit from the stimulus and possibly come out with a higher return by filing separately if one of the couple's income was under the 50k~ stimulus threshold and that parent claimed the dependents. With this thought planted in my head I logged into TurboTax and created a draft amendment for our joint return where changed the filing status to married filing separately and removed the wife and kids. I then created a new return for the wife (married filing separately) and had her claim the dependents. The overall return for this actually ended up to be about $1,800 higher between the two of our returns so I went ahead and amended the first return and submitted hers before the April deadline. Fast forward to September, the IRS notified us they found an error with her return (submitted through TurboTax) and what we are now getting back is about $1,100 lower than had we filed jointly. I immediately called a H&R block advisor so I could speak to someone in person about my situation and they are telling me that filing "Married filing Separately" makes you ineligible for the child tax credit and that's why the IRS reduced our return. My question is, is this correct? If so, why would TurboTax allow you to claim the child tax credit as Married filing separately if this is not authorized? I am now stuck with a lower return had I left it alone and I am unsure how to proceed. Any assistance/guidance would be greatly appreciated.
