Child Tax Credit: You can manage monthly payments with new portal features

You can now more easily change the mailing address the Internal Revenue Service uses to send out monthly child tax credit payments, thanks to an update to the agency’s online portal.

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The IRS’s Child Tax Credit Update Portal allows a family that chooses to receive the payment via paper check — instead of having it directly deposited in a checking account — to submit a change of address notice online.

If you want the September payment sent elsewhere, you have until Aug. 30 to go into the portal and make the change, the IRS said in a news release.

The agency notes that if you change your mailing address using the Child Tax Credit Update Portal, the agency “will use this updated address for all future IRS correspondence so the address change feature can also be helpful to taxpayers that are receiving payments by direct deposit.”

Using the portal, you can also switch from receiving a paper check to direct deposit; change the account where their payment is direct deposited; or stop monthly payments for the rest of 2021.

To qualify for advance child tax credit payments, you — and your spouse, if you filed a joint return — must have:

• Filed a 2019 or 2020 tax return and claimed the child tax credit on the return; or
• Given the IRS your information in 2020 to receive the Economic Impact Payment using the Non-Filers: Enter Payment Info Here tool; and
• A main home in the United States (the 50 states and the District of Columbia) for more than half the year or file a joint return with a spouse who has a main home in the United States for more than half the year; and
• A qualifying child who is under age 18 at the end of 2021 and who has a valid Social Security number; and
• Made less than certain income limits.

For more information on the advance child tax credit, visit IRS.gov/childtaxcredit2021.

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