By ROWENA PLETT

Staff writer

Income tax preparers will be making sure that people got stimulus payments and child tax credits for which they qualified in 2021.

The Internal Revenue Service is required to send letters to recipients that state the amount of cash payments received. These should be kept with tax records.

The third of three stimulus payments was sent in January 2021. Tax preparer Ken Koslowsky of Hillsboro said if anybody who qualified failed to get the payment, a credit is due on his or her income tax return.

Starting in July 2021, parents with minor children began to receive monthly child tax credit payments instead of one lump sum at the end of the year.

When they file income tax returns, they will receive credit for the first six months of the year, during which they did not receive payments. The cash payments they received, however, cannot be more than the standard child tax credit.

According to H&R Block manager Jo Wiebe, a new Kansas law allows taxpayers to itemize medical expenses on their Kansas returns even if they don’t itemize them on federal returns.

Kansas’ standard medical deductions are $3,500 for singles and $8,000 if married.

Wiebe said everything connected with medical issues can be itemized, including premiums, prescriptions, and out-of-pocket payments to dentists, doctors, and chiropractors. Travel expenses can be itemized at 14 cents a mile.

Wiebe said that if medical expenses exceed 7½% of a person’s adjusted gross income, itemizing medical expenses could benefit them on federal tax returns as well.