(AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)
As the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) gets set to distribute the first round of payments in July to families that qualify for the child tax credit, the White House says undocumented families can qualify for advanced monthly payments.
Latino Rebels asked First Lady Jill Biden’s chief of staff Julissa Reynoso on a press call Wednesday morning if undocumented parents are eligible for checks via the child tax credit program in the American Rescue Plan.
“If the parent and the child have an ITIN [Individual Taxpayer Identification Number], that should suffice for the family to be able to receive the credit,” Reynoso said.
“The childtaxcredit.gov site is in English and Spanish. We’re doing a lot of outreach to Spanish language press too,” she added.
The child tax credit is a tax benefit to families with children under 17 years old who make less than $400,000 per year. Starting in July, Families who filed taxes in 2019 or 2020 should receive a payment of $250 to $300 per child per month until the end of the year. Payment amounts vary based on the age of the children.
“We don’t expect many glitches in the child tax credit,” said Cedric Richman, director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, on a Wednesday morning call with reporters. “We’re really just trying to educate people to make sure they take advantage of it.”
Late applicants to the program will have payments from previous months added to the remaining cycles to total between $1,500 and $1,800 per child between now and the end of the year.
“Everyone who has filed taxes will automatically receive the payment without having to register,” White House Hispanic Media Director Audrey Lopez said. “People only have to sign up on the website if they didn’t file taxes for 2019 or 2020.”
Can ‘IRS Tech’ Deliver?
Republicans gutted the Internal Revenue Service, over a decade ago, so the technology the agency relies on can be difficult to navigate for English fluent users, let alone ESL learners.
All three IRS tools relevant to the child tax credit are only available in English, including the non-filer tool, which is most useful to low-income families who typically don’t file taxes.
Internet access is essential, as there is no paper form that an applicant can submit to qualify for the child tax credit advance payment.
For anything else you could possibly want to know about the child tax credit, check out Katie Teague’s writeup over at CNET.
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Pablo Manríquez is Latino Rebels’ Washington correspondent. He is an immigrant from Santiago de Chile with a political science degree from the University of Notre Dame. The Washington Post calls him “an Internet folk hero.” Twitter: @PabloReports.
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