Form 15111 is a US Treasury Form that is a questionnaire of the dependents on your return to see if they qualify for EIC. This is an IRS Internal Form. They should have sent it to you to complete if they wanted you to send it back to them.
IRS also uses it when more than one person has claimed the same dependent on a return to determine who is really entitled to claim the dependent on their return.
Refer to the information above to determine if you qualify to claim the children for EIC and how to be sure it is entered correctly in the return. It could be that you did receive EIC on your return using your 2020 income, but maybe you would get more Earned Income Credit if you used your 2019 income.
If you share a custody agreement for the children, then entering less than 6 months living with you will cause you not to get earned income credit for them.
Please look back at your return on Form 1040 line 27 to see if there is an amount of Earned Income Credit already on your return, but you might qualify for more, is why IRS has contacted you with the inquiry.
For this year's earned income credit you can calculate the 2020 Earned Income Credit based on the 2019 tax return or the 2020 tax return. If you did not have the 2019 amounts handy at the time, you might check now with those amounts to see if you can get additional Earned income credit based on the 2019 return instead of using the 2020 return amounts.
You will probably have to go into the return and amend it to do the calculations to see which year's amounts are more beneficial.
Yes, you can use your 2019 earned income instead of your 2020 income to compute the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit if your 2019 earned income was more than your 2020 earned income.
Please wait until your original return has been processed before filing an amended return (Form-X). You can e-file your 2020 amended federal tax return, but most states require amendments to be printed and filed by mail. Please see FAQ How to amend a tax return for instructions.
Please see Where's My Amended Return? to check the status of your amended return.
Please follow these steps in TurboTax to calculate the Earned Income Credit with the 2019 earned income:
- Login to your TurboTax Account
- Click on the Search box on the top and type "EIC"
- Click on “Jump to EIC”
- Answer the questions until you reach the screen "Do you want to use last year’s earned income?"
- Note your current refund amount using your 2020 earned income at the top of the screen.
- Click "Yes", enter your "2019 Earned Income" if the field is blank and click "continue".
- Compare the new refund amount using your 2019 earned income with the previously noted refund amount using your 2020 earned income.
- If your new refund amount is lower click "back" and then select "No" for the "Do you want to use your 2019 income to calculate this credit instead?" question.
You also may use your 2019 income for the Child Tax Credit:
- Login to your TurboTax Account
- Click on the Search box on the top and type "Child tax credit"
- Click on “Jump to child tax credit”
- Answer the questions until you reach the screen "Do you want to use last year’s earned income?"
- Note your current refund amount using your 2020 earned income at the top of the screen.
- Click "Yes", enter your "2019 Earned Income" if the field is blank and click "continue".
- Compare the new refund amount using your 2019 earned income with the previously noted refund amount using your 2020 earned income.
- If your new refund amount is lower click "back" and then select "No" for the "Do you want to use your 2019 income to calculate this credit instead?" question.
Here is a link on how to amend your tax return to do that:
How to amend your return to use 2019 income for 2020 EIC
Here is a link to the US Treasury Form 15111 that you can fill out online and then print it to send back to IRS with the response from the letter they sent you and print a copy for your records.
IRS Internal Form 15111
