Child tax credits

[Charityg818]

• Hi, I have had a baby after filing taxes this year. I also have an older child that someone else has claimed when they weren't supposed to. How do I fix this to where I get both their child tax credits?

[pearo22]

Hello @Charityg818 ,

To your first point, congratulations on the new born!  For the child born in 2021, you have 2 options.  The first is to wait until filing your 2021 taxes in the spring of 2022 and get to claim the entire child tax credit for that child.  The second option is to go through the IRS portal to update your information with the new child to receive the remaining advanced payments for the 2021 credit.  The actual amount of the credit would be the same either way, just a matter of receiving some advanced payments and a lesser credit when filing, or no advanced payments and the entire credit when filing.

To your second point, if you claim a dependent after someone already has, when you go to e-file it will come back with an error saying the SSN for a dependent has already been used.  To get around this, you would need to file a paper tax return, and then wait for the IRS to contact you which is when you will have the opportunity to prove you get to claim the dependent.  

https://www.irs.gov/identity-theft-fraud-scams/identity-theft-dependents

[Charityg818]

I have already got my 2020 tax returns without the older child on it. The other person says the money for the child is going to collects. Do I still file a paper one to fix this? 

[pearo22]

For 2020, if the other person claimed the child, and received the child tax credit, then technically you would want to amend (by paper due to the child's SSN already account for for 2020) to claim the child yourself if you are entitled to.  After processing, the IRS would eventually generate the extra refund for you, and a tax bill to compensate for the credit given to the other person.  

Another factor this year is that if the other person received the child tax credit in 2020, they may be receiving the monthly advanced child tax credit payments for 2021, unlike yourself.  If this is the case, they would owe back those payments as well next spring if this child is claimed by you for 2021.