Color of Money
It’s unclear how many families have been affected by this glitch. Alarcon, who helps moderate the Facebook group Mixed Status Families United, said that she has heard from more than 400 families who haven’t received the payments.
“We organized the group to start calling the IRS and calling our congressmen. That’s when we found out that our accounts were flagged because we have an ITIN holder,” said Alarcon, who lives in Madison, Wis. Her Mexican-born husband is a legal permanent resident. “We’re getting super frstrated. Getting this money for us means not having to go to the food pantry for our groceries.”
Families have flooded social media platforms to complain about the late child tax credit payments.
“I’m a U.S. citizen by birth,” said Garcia, who lives in Annapolis. “My husband is from El Salvador, but we met all the eligibility requirements so I never really thought twice about it. It wasn’t like the first stimulus payment where I didn’t realize we weren’t getting it because of the mixed-status issue. But everything indicated that mixed-status families were good to go. I had been expecting, come July, that extra money was going to be there. So I’ve planned accordingly, trying to catch up with everything from last year.”
If the issue is resolved before the end of the year, the IRS says, families will receive the missed payments. The catch-up payments will be spread out over whatever remaining months are left.
Let’s say a couple qualifies for a $1,000 monthly payment from July to December
for their children for a total of $6,000. If the IRS is able to fix the program in time for the Aug. 13 payment disbursement, the new monthly amount would be $1,200, because the payments now cover just five months. If the IRS isn’t able to correct the problem before the end of the year, parents will have to claim the child tax credit when they file their 2021 return next year.
Families are hoping the money comes soon.
“I’m not working right now,” Alonso-Campos said. “I had to resign from my job due to a lack of child care. We’re barely making it. I don’t even know how I’m going to be able to pay on my rent.”
Like so many other families, Garcia said she and her husband, who is in the process of getting a green card, were already working hard to make ends meet before the pandemic. That’s why this latest glitch in payments is so painful.
“Last year, my husband was out of work for about three months, so we fell really behind in bills,” Garcia said. “We’re just trying to catch up and get out of the hole and give our kids some semblance of normalcy.”
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