So as we get closer to full go with tax season, I am becoming more and more concerned with how we are going to reconcile the Advance Child Tac Credit payments and the EIP3 payments on the 2021 tax return. I feel as a firm, we have been pretty proactive about this:
1) We mailed our clients information about the ACTC payments back in June, including a schedule that they could fill out showing the payments that they received each month.
2) We encouraged clients to sign up for an IRS Online Account over the summer so they could see the payments that the IRS says they should have received
3) We included the schedule that we mailed back in June with our tax organizers that were mailed in December stressing the importance of having this payment information
4) We sent another email/web post earlier this month informing clients that they should be on the lookout for Letters 6419 and 6475.
My concern right now is that the IRS says that they started mailing Letter 6419 the last week of December. Yet no one I know has received one. The disaster that was last year's EIP 1 & 2 reconciliation and how less than 25% of my clients received any sort of letter from the IRS regarding the payments they received is still fresh in my mind. I don't place a whole lot of faith that the IRS will push these out as they promise.
So I guess the alternative is for the client to set up an online account to access the information. Well the IRS now requires all new users to use ID.ME to set up these accounts (users that were set up under the old system will be required to change to ID.ME this summer I believe). I went through the process of trying to get my wife set up on this last night. After two failed attempts where it didn't recognize her, the site suggested a video call. The wait time for this was 2.5 hours. I honestly can't imagine any of my clients having the patience for this.
So I guess my question are any of you as worried about this as I am? Are you doing anything differently to plan for this