The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has acknowledged through a statement that an unknown number of families who were eligible to receive child support checks were mistakenly left out of the first payment because one of the the spouse is an immigrant, according to The Washington Post newspaper.
This problem has affected both undocumented immigrants and immigrants with a visa or
green card
, according to the IRS.
[The first child support check arrives. We explain how to receive it]
"The IRS
is investigating
reports from parents who reported with an [Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, ITIN] that they did not receive their advance child tax credit payments in July and, in any of those cases, will work to ensure that they receive the future monthly payments ", assured the federal agency.
The American Rescue Plan promoted by the president, Joe Biden, and approved in the spring by Congress, increased monthly payments to families up to $ 300 for each child under the age of five and up to $ 250 for those ages 6 to 17.
All eligible families in the United States can benefit, regardless of immigration status, in contrast to the previous $ 2 trillion aid package approved in March 2020, which excluded undocumented spouses from paychecks. $ 1,200 aid per adult plus $ 500 per dependent child.
Alert for fraud in the delivery of checks to families with children in the United States.
July 21, 202102: 03
Complaints from families with mixed status led to a change in the aid approved later, so that families in which one of the taxpayers lacked a Social Security number became eligible for stimulus payments.
The undocumented, however, remained ineligible for stimulus checks.
Now, with the monthly child tax credit payments, mixed status families are eligible as well as long as everyone claiming the children as dependents has a
Social Security number
or
Individual Taxpayer Identification Number
(ITIN, for that matter). its acronym in English).
They will receive payments only if they used their Social Security or ITIN number when they filed their 2019 or 2020 tax return, or when they entered information in the non-filers tool at www.irs.gov.
Each eligible child must also have a valid Social Security number to work in the United States.
[Five Smart Ways to Use Monthly Aid Per Child Starting in July]
Many undocumented immigrants and some non-citizens are not eligible for Social Security numbers, but can obtain an ITIN, which is used to file a return and pay taxes.
"We have not received it because there is some kind of glitch in the IRS system, I suppose," Samantha Alonso-Campos, who is a US citizen, told The Washington Post.
She lives in Woodbridge, Virginia, with her husband of Mexican origin who is in the process of obtaining a green card, and their four children, ages 12, 6, 5 and 2.
"They say we are not eligible for it on the website, even though I
received a letter from the IRS saying I would be eligible,
" he said.
The number of families that have been affected by this ruling is unknown.
Jessie Alarcón, who helps moderate the Facebook group Mixed Status Families United, said more than 400 families reported not receiving payments.
There is confusion among undocumented parents about how to receive child checks.
This is what to do
July 16, 202101: 35
"We organized the group to start calling the IRS and our congressmen. That's when we discovered that our accounts were flagged because we have an ITIN," said Alarcón, who lives in Madison, Wisconsin.
Her husband, of Mexican origin, is a permanent legal resident.
"We feel super frustrated," he lamented.
"I am a US citizen by birth," said Lara Garcia, who lives in Annapolis, Maryland.
"My husband is from El Salvador, but we met all the eligibility requirements, so I never thought twice. It was not like the first stimulus payment, in which I did not realize that we were not receiving it because of the question of the Mixed status. But all indications were that families with mixed status were eligible [for the child check]. I was hoping that when July rolled around, that extra money would be there. So I planned accordingly, trying to catch up. with everything from last year, "he revealed to the aforementioned newspaper.
The IRS noted that if this issue is resolved before the year is out, families will receive back payments.