stimulus check amount in error

[Greta]

New client prepared his own 2019 taxes using Turbotax. Somehow got child's DOB wrong, reported age 17 instead of age 7. I can amend it. But his stimulus check was $500 short. Any way to fix this kind of error in the stimulus check?

[Just-Lisa-Now- · Accepted solution]

Id be more concerned about the child tax credit he missed out on, than the EIP.....an amended return wont complete processing for 6 months or probably more....

He'll have to wait to pick up the rest of the EIP on the 2020 return.

[BobKamman]

@Just-Lisa-Now- 

I know it seems like years since the federal government first acknowledged the problem, but it was less than two months ago.  IRS was at half speed for two weeks, then shut down for a month, and now again at half speed while trying to catch up on the backlog.  For much of the work they rely on temps, who will be working in June when normally they would be furloughed.  While much of the work force was sent away, so was much of the work, with the July 15 due dates.  So I figure they are a couple months behind, and catching up.  

They will work amended returns before they do a lot of other things, because the interest on refunds is accruing.  In the best of times it would sometimes take six months to process a 1040-X, but even with that delay on a few, most cases were closed in two months or less.  I would expect three months now, and use the online tool for tracking the progress.

For the original poster:  Attach a copy of the kid's birth certificate.  I think IRS has a way of checking birth dates already, because I recall cases where a 17-year-old was denied even when the birth date claimed he was 7, but make it as easy as possible for them.   

[Just-Lisa-Now-]

I was seeing some amended returns take over the 4 month mark 2 years ago..now that theyve got such a backlog, I wont be sending any amended returns in until 2021.

[BobKamman]

Why would you wait a year to start the ball rolling, unless your client doesn’t want the money soon and likes the interest rate that the government pays?

Amended returns go to a gatekeeper. Most are just passed along for routine processing, which can take about the same amount of time as an original paper return – sometimes less than the 45 days when interest becomes due. Others are sent to Exam, which generally works them in the order received. (Actually, that initial determination of audit potential is reviewed two more times.) Those are the ones that can take months. It’s possible that the more IRS catches up on the backlog, the more closely these "CAT-A" claims will be examined.

The procedure is described in a TIGTA report from 2016:

Current IRS policies and systems only accept amended returns via paper returns. The paper
returns are first received by the Submission Processing function, which is part of the IRS’s Wage
and Investment (W&I) Division. Tax examiners manually review the claims to determine if they
meet certain criteria (i.e., Category A, which is often referred to as CAT-A criteria) requiring
additional review. Claims that do not meet the CAT-A criteria are processed within the
Submission Processing function and thus are not forwarded for possible audit. Those claims that meet the CAT-A criteria are referred to the IRS’s Accounts Management function. Once the
Accounts Management function receives the claim, it is responsible for confirming that the claim
in fact meets CAT-A criteria and was not forwarded in error. If a claim meets CAT-A criteria,
the claim will be forwarded to the Campus Examination Classification function, where it is
reviewed to determine if the IRS should select the claim for audit.