WASHINGTON—The Internal Revenue Service sent $1.1 billion in advanced child tax credit payments during 2021 to people who shouldn’t have gotten them, and failed to send $3.7 billion to eligible households, according to an inspector general’s audit released on Tuesday.
The audit found 1.5 million taxpayers received the payments in error, and the IRS didn’t send payments to 4.1 million eligible households. Still, the agency was 98% accurate in sending more than 175 million child tax credit payments, made as part of the government’s response to the economic challenges of the coronavirus pandemic, the report by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration said.
