@amytax8899 - permit me to explain...it is confusing
- these payments are advances on the 2020 tax return. What that means is Congress authorized the IRS to pay some of your 2020 taxes that is why Line 30 is in the 'payment section' of your tax return
- but the problem was that no one would know what their income, filing status and dependents were at the time the law was passed because 2020 hadn't ended yet.
- So the law stated that the IRS was to use the 2019 tax return (and if that wasn't available 2018) to determine the payments. These are the EIPs. But this was an ESTIMATE since 2020 wasn't available. this ESTIMATE is what you received as the stimulus payment!
- Now we get to the 2020 tax return and the ACTUAL income, dependents and filing status is available to calculate the ACTUAL amount you are due.
- if that ACTUAL is greater than the ESTIMATE the difference is the Recovery Credit on Line 30.
- if that ESTIMATE is greater than the ACTUAL, then Line 30 is zero and you are not required to return any of the excess.
Since you ACTUAL calculation based on your 2020 tax return is zero you are not eligible for any more beyond what you already received, which in this case is also zero.
please read this over again; it is the way it works.
p.s. yes, the EIP is based on 2018 and 2019 so that is true, but look at how the tax returns for those years fit into the bigger picture and the bullets I wrote out.
