So, my oldest son hired a tax "pro" whom he also lives with. She's doing this for him for free. I feel that straddles the line of some ethics violations, but it's the United States... whatever.
Backstory - We kicked him out on November of 2020 because he wasn't behaving, so he moved in with a friend's mom (against our wishes). He started a job at the firm that I work at (thanks to me leading him to the position) and made a boatload of money for four months (August to early December).
Back in December, I stated to my kid via text that I intended to file him as a dependent, and at that time he said "I am using a tax pro for free, whatever."
So fast forward to January. I file him as a dependent as I believed that I ticked all of the legal boxes to be able to do so. I learn a week or two ago that my son's e-file was kicked back to him because I claimed him as a dependent, and his preparer filed him as independent. He told me that she was going to manually file and force the IRS to iron out the contention. She said that potential stimulus money that she could win for him was "icing on the cake" but she was really going after the exemption for his independence status more than anything.
I spoke with said preparer, she was adversarial and demanded that I provide proof that I provided more than half of the support in 2020. She can't legally provide me that info, not sure why she expected anything from me.
So, today, I noticed that my EIP 3 (third stimulus) was only about half of what it should be given my married status and having 4 kids. Even if we excluded my oldest son, it's way below that. Does this indicate that my account/return for 2020 has been flagged as fraudulent, or am I missing something? Of course, the IRS is extremely busy and I can't get into my online account either. Any pros out there see this happen to their clients?
