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@dkh wrote:

Why only 5 payments ?  There should be 6.   Did you look at his IRS account info ?   Hard to believe nothing would be there regarding the ACTC payments.    You report half of the total for your client and half of the total number dependents it was based upon on the F8812.

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I agree with most of this.  Why not 6 payments?  If the first payment went to the ex then he'll need to chase her for that money, the IRS only knows how much they sent out to his SSN, not who spent it.  For repayment protection, going from MFJ to S you would enter the full number of dependents listed on the 6419 letter, not half.  It's likely his 6419 letter was mailed to the ex-wife's address.

Unless your client wants to wait a while for their refund, I wouldn't be guessing at numbers.  Have your client get an IRS account.  Just like the old Prego commercials, "It's In There!"  I'm not sure what the IRS is doing now with the big stink about ID.me.  My account is pre-ID.me so I just had to have a cell phone in my name for authentication instead of sending a picture of my driver's license through the Internet.  Either way, you have one PITA now (walking your client through setting up an IRS account) instead of 9+ months of PITA later (when the client keeps pestering you while their return is stuck "in processing" because the numbers the IRS was expecting were not the numbers that went onto the 8812.)

Ah what a fun year we're having.