Week in Insights: Child Tax Benefits Fix Will Correct Priorities

The IRS is close to solving a problem that affects custodial parents: The inability of both parents who share custody to file electronically for child-related tax benefits means receiving the benefits can devolve into a race to file. The parent who has primary custody can sometimes lose.

Only one parent can claim benefits such as the child tax credit each year under existing procedures. The electronic system processes whichever return is filed first and rejects any claims for the same child on subsequent filings. The rejected parent must then file on paper, which could result in a months-long wait to ...