Stimulus Check

[Tmac3rd]

I received a third stimulus check ($2,800) March 18, 2021.  I'm filing married filing jointly, no dependants.  Turbo tax gives an error message and refers to Form 8812 before I can efile.  When I physically complete Form 8812 within Turbo Tax it reduces my refund by $2,800.  Is there a glitch in Turbo tax.  My understanding is that this amount is neither taxable and should have no effect on my refund.

[xmasbaby0]

8812 has nothing to do with the stimulus check.     8812 is for the child tax credit.

Everyone has to answer whether they received advance child tax credit payments.   If you did not receive any of those payments between July and December you need to answer that you did not receive any payments.

There are so many scenarios with those payments---like divorced/never married parents who have issues over who received the payments, who claimed the children, etc. --- the software has no way of knowing if any of that involves you---so you have to answer the questions about it. 

Please follow these steps to indicate you did not receive any advanced payments:

1. Click on the "Search" on the top and type "Child tax credit"
2. Click on “Jump to Child Tax Credit”
3. Continue through the questions until the "Tell us about any advance Child Tax Credit payments" screen and select "No".
4. Continue through the questions.

As for it seeming like you "lost" the stimulus or were taxed on it---neither of those things happened.

The "refund monitor" starts off by giving your all of the stimulus money and all of the child tax credit because the software does not know yet that you received stimulus money or that you received some advance child tax credit payments.    That gets reconciled later.

That "refund monitor" changes as you enter information.      That is normal.   And you cannot take it seriously until you enter ALL of your information---even though it is so tempting to believe that the highest amount is the "right" refund.

[Vanessa A]

You are correct, the stimulus payments are not income and are not taxable.

Did you enter your stimulus received in the final review section or in the child tax credit section?  If you entered it in the Child Tax Credit section, it is telling you that you need to pay it back since you have no dependents.  You will need to go to Tax Tools>>Tools>> Delete a form and then delete form 8812.

You will then enter your stimulus amount received in the final review section of TurboTax.