IRS Distributes Third Child Tax Credit Into Bank Accounts

The third Child Tax Credit payment is set to go into bank accounts today. Millions of families will benefit from the funds and most parents will automatically receive the credit of up to $300 for each child up to age 6 and $250 for each ages 6 to 17. The IRS is scheduled to send three more payments to parents in the upcoming months. In August, they distributed more than $15 billion to parents of roughly 61 million children.

According to the Treasury Department, low income households, affecting as many as 2.3 million children, may not get their payments if they did not file their taxes in 2020 or 2019 or use the IRS tool to claim their Coronavirus stimulus checks. Lawmakers are looking to extend the payments through 2025 as part of their $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill. The credit is expected to cut child poverty by almost half for 2021 and if extended, 4.3 million fewer children would be in poverty in a typical year.