Ask The Taxgirl: Making Work Pay Credit & Tax Years

Taxpayer asks:

Hi Tax girl,

My nephew did not work in 2009…but did work the full year in 2010. Is he entitled to the making work pay credit? He does meet all of the other requirements.
and If I could sneak in another quick question…
My daughter did not claim the making work pay schedule in 2009 or 2010.
Would she just fill out a schedule M for both of those years & have to ammend her return???

Thanks so much

taxgirl says:

Whether or not you received the credit in 2009 – or whether you qualified in 2009 – should not affect your eligibility for the credit in 2010. So if your son qualified in 2010, he should claim the credit irrespective of what happened in 2009.

With respect to your daughter, yes, it is generally the case that if you didn’t claim the credit, you would need to file an amended return. However, your daughter should check her correspondence to ensure that the IRS didn’t “fix” it for her last year. I’d also recommended calling the IRS before filing an amended return. With so many taxpayers experiencing confusion over the new credit last year, the IRS was making an effort to catch those returns which were missing Schedule M and correcting the error for the taxpayers (more at the prior post and in the comments). So ordinarily, I would say to amend but I would recommend checking her records first, then contacting IRS.

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Kelly Phillips Erb

Kelly Phillips Erb is a tax attorney, tax writer, and podcaster.

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