The Internal Revenue Service is welcoming the newest member of its Spanish-language features into the clan. The Child Tax Credit Eligibility Assistant that helps families determine if they qualify for the Child Tax Credit and its special advance payments is now available in Spanish.
The Spanish-language version of the tool follows the lead of the original English tool, in that it is interactive and is written to be easy to use. Users simply need to answer a series of questions about themselves and their families to determine if they qualify for the credit.
The IRS says the tool is available to anyone, but it could prove to be especially handy for families who don’t normally file a federal tax return and have not yet filed for 2019 or 2020. These individuals often have little or no income; they may be homeless or be part of other underserved groups.
The Child Tax Credit Eligibility Tool can help them decide whether to continue the sign-up process. From there, they can either choose to register for Child Tax Credit payments using the Non-Filer Sign-up Tool, or to file a regular tax return.
Other multi-lingual help is available
The IRS has come up with materials in several languages to help people understand and receive the benefits offered by the Child Tax Credit. More multi-lingual resources are expected in the coming weeks and months.
Some of the multilingual resources that are currently available include:
- A step-by-step guide to using the Non-Filer Sign-up Tool (Publication 5538) in Spanish, Chinese Simplified, Korean, Vietnamese, Haitian Creole and Russian.
- A basic You Tube video on the Advance Child Tax Credit in Spanish and Chinese, as well as English.
- E-posters in various languages.
These tools and materials – in English and other languages – are posted on a special Advance Child Tax Credit web page at IRS.gov/childtaxcredit2021.
In addition, the IRS has an array of tax-related tools and other resources available in various languages.
The IRS reminds that the Child Tax Credit Eligibility Assistant doesn’t require any personally-identifiable information (PII) for any family member, therefore the results should not be considered an official IRS determination. The results are indeed reliable, but should be considered preliminary if the question are answered accurately.
The IRS does not save or keep the answers supplied by the user or the results generated by the tool.
For more information, visit IRS.gov/childtaxcredit2021, or check out the FAQs on the 2021 Child Tax Credit and Advance Child Tax Credit Payments.