Honestly, this is becoming the most confusing thing I've ever dealt with, concerning income taxes, the IRS, etc.
Before I continue, I want to reiterate that I have been EXTREMELY CAREFUL to check all our accounts to make CERTAIN that I know exactly how much stimulus money we received. I am filing for my wife and myself, married filing jointly.
In further efforts to disambiguate things, I'm going to provide details.
In February 2021 we received a letter from the IRS telling us that we received a $1200 stimulus check. That check arrived and we deposited it into one of our accounts.
In April 2021 we received a form letter from the White House, telling us that a check had been sent to us for $8400. We received that check and deposited it into the same account as the $1200 check.
Then in January 2022 my wife received a letter from the IRS saying that we were issued a check for $4200. We never received that check.
In February 2022 I received a letter from the IRS saying that we were issued a check for $4200. We never received that check.
I admit that when I looked at both letters, I thought they were duplicate letters, because all I looked at was the body of the letters, which are identical. I didn't look at who it was addressed to, until @VolvoGirl said in this message thread, that the IRS sent two letters, both Letter 6475, specifying half the amount. I verified that both letters are Letter 6475 letters.
I have to say that for me it muddles understanding a lot. Neither of these Letter 6475's said anything about being half of a third stimulus payment. In fact, neither said anything about being a third stimulus payment. When we received the $8400 check in 2021, we thought it was the second stimulus payment. We heard that some people weren't getting a third stimulus check, so we thought that we were one of thouse not getting a third check. I didn't even think that a third check might be coming our way, until January and February of this year.
This covers all the letters we've received about stimulus payments (4 letters) and checks (2 checks).
Now, I'm trying to make sense of this complicated situation. Here are the possible solutions I can think of. There may be other solutions I've not thought of.
Solution 1: The $8400 check we received in April 2021 was the second stimulus check. So we're still due a third check, for $8400. (Or maybe two checks for $4200 each. I don't know. If the IRS wants to send two Letter 6475 to us telling us hald of the third payment, maybe they'll also send us two checks for the third payment.) It seems a coincidence that the amount for the second stimulus check and the third stimulus check are exactly the same. For that reason I have my doubts that this is the correct solution, but I could be wrong, it might be.
Solution 2: There's some second stimulus check and letter that we've never received. I've no idea how much that could have been for.
When I went to that link on Q&A on the third economic impact statement, it said something about doing an income tax filing for 2020 if you didn't get a first or second stimulus check! I don't understand that at all. All of the checks we received were in 2021. I am very confused as to what's happen and more importantly what I'm supposed to do next? I'm wondering if that Your Online Account is the wrong place to go, if I'm supposed to do a filing for a 2020 or some earlier year.
