2020 Taxes - Claim First and Second Stimulus Check based on 2020 income not 2019 return

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
January 31, 2021
2 replies
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My wife and my income was higher in 2019 due to a severance package we received. In 2020, we made well under the $150k threshold and never received the first or second stimulus check. I purchased turbo tax 2020 and don't see a way to claim/recover the stimulus payments. Any advice/experience on how we can get it?

Best answer by Critter-3

If you did not receive your first and/or second stimulus payment or if the amount received is not correct, you can claim it on your 2020 tax return as the Recovery Rebate Credit. You can e-file your return even if you have no taxable income.

In TurboTax Online, to claim the Recovery Rebate credit please do the following:

Sign into your account and continue from where you left off
Click on Federal in the left-hand column, then on Federal Review on the top of the screen
On the next page titled Let's make sure you got the right stimulus amount, click on Continue
Follow the interview
TurboTax will determine whether you are entitled to any additional stimulus
Any stimulus amount remaining due to you will show as a credit on line 30 of your form 1040.

MaryM428

There is not an option to use your 2019 income to claim stimulus payments. The option that you are referring to is for people who did not have enough earned income in 2020 to qualify for the Earned Income Credit.

That happened to many people who were collecting unemployment instead of wages in 2020. Unemployment is not earned income, so they did not qualify for the earned income limit with their 2020 income. The government gives them an opportunity to file using their 2019 earned income if that gives them a better result on their 2020 taxes.

BlabberMouthAuthor

Hi Mary,

Thank you for you post. Our 2019 income did not qualify us for the stimulus payment as that is what the fed govt used to calculate our income. However, our earned income for 2020 would qualify us (we did not collect unemployment). Would this qualify us for the stimulus payment?

Critter-3Answer

In TurboTax Online, to claim the Recovery Rebate credit please do the following:

Sign into your account and continue from where you left off
Click on Federal in the left-hand column, then on Federal Review on the top of the screen
On the next page titled Let's make sure you got the right stimulus amount, click on Continue
Follow the interview
TurboTax will determine whether you are entitled to any additional stimulus
Any stimulus amount remaining due to you will show as a credit on line 30 of your form 1040.

Robin1126

How to claim first and second stimulus payment and did turbo tax claim it on 2020 tax return

Critter-3

If you did not get the first 2 stimulus payments and you have already filed a 2020 return with nothing on line 30 of the form 1040 then once the original return has fully processed and you have the original refund in hand you can amend the return to add the missing credit.