By Aman Jain. Originally published at ValueWalk.
There are no signs yet of the second coronavirus checks. A few TurboTax users, however, are still waiting for their first checks despite no fault of their own. These TurboTax users didn’t get the coronavirus stimulus checks likely due to a single checked box that asked if their spouse could be claimed as a dependent by someone else or not.
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No coronavirus stimulus checks for some TurboTax users
This issue with the checked box first came to attention in April. One TurboTax user reported that they filed 2019 returns as married filing separately. However, a box was accidentally checked that someone else could claim their spouse as a dependent.
Since then several users have talked about the same thing in a TurboTax support forum. In June, one user noted that the IRS confirmed that the checked box is the reason why some TurboTax users didn’t get the coronavirus stimulus checks.
The thread continues to get comments even now as users who haven’t yet received the stimulus check look for answers. A few users suggested that the issue could be the information being carried over from the last year’s tax return in TurboTax.
When Forbes inquired about the same, they got the answer from Intuit, the owner of TurboTax. In an email, Intuit told Forbes that only a few users who had this checked box, had it carried over from their 2018 tax returns.
“For a very small number of customers, the ‘spouse claimed as a dependent’ check box was carried over from their 2018 tax return when it was no longer relevant. This has no effect on the outcome of an individual’s tax return and has been resolved in TurboTax,” Intuit said.
How did this checked box affect eligibility?
One big question is how this checked box affected the eligibility of a few TurboTax users for the stimulus checks. There is no clear answer to this now. Intuit, however, says that it is working with the IRS to address the issue. Further, it noted that the affected TurboTax users “correctly had this box checked for their 2018 filing.”
“We do not know which filing/s IRS used to determine eligibility for this small number of filers or why this checkbox would be used for EIP eligibility,” Intuit said, adding more information on the matter would be available later.
A few TurboTax users claim that the box was checked in their 2018 filing, but that they hadn’t checked the box.
Hopefully, the TurboTax users who didn’t get coronavirus stimulus checks due to this checked box will get it soon. The IRS is currently in the process of resolving payments for some users, but it is not known if the agency will pick up this issue now or not.
If the issue is not addressed now, the affected users, if eligible, would be able to claim the payment as part of their 2020 tax returns to be filed next year.
The post Why a few TurboTax users didn’t get coronavirus stimulus checks appeared first on ValueWalk.
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