Late summer is when small tax offices start re-touching returns they thought were finished. Amended returns arrive. Clients come back with a new Social Security number, a missing document, or a filing-status question nobody resolved in March. In bilingual offices, that second pass is exactly where Form 8867 risk compounds, including under the SSN requirement that applies to the Child Tax Credit and Additional Child Tax Credit starting with tax year 2025.
What Changed for Due Diligence This Year
Form 8867 due diligence applies whenever a paid preparer determines eligibility for, or the amount of, the EITC, the CTC/ACTC/ODC, the AOTC, or head-of-household filing status.[1] Each of those four items — the three credits and HOH filing status — is its own trigger; a return doesn't need to combine HOH with a credit for the due-diligence lane to open.
The most immediate change sits in the 11/2025 instructions: starting with tax year 2025, a taxpayer claiming the CTC or ACTC must also have a valid SSN. On a joint return, only one filer needs that SSN — the other may still hold a valid ITIN.[2] A staff note that says "mixed SSN/ITIN household" is no longer enough; the file needs a specific, taxpayer-level answer to that question.
The instructions also require that Form 8867 travel with the return or the amended return whenever a covered credit or HOH status is claimed.[2] If an amendment changes a covered credit or the HOH story, offices should treat the documentation as needing to stand on its own for that filing event.
The Math When One Review Step Slips
The consequences aren't abstract. For returns or claims filed in 2026, the due-diligence penalty is $650 per failure, and a single return can reach $2,600 if all four covered categories are missed.[2][4]
Picture a five-preparer office revisiting 320 post-filing returns between July and October. If six filing events later fail the standard — one covered category each — the exposure is 6 × $650, or $3,900.[2][4] A more realistic mixed case: four returns miss one category each, and two amended returns miss two categories each because income was corrected but the HOH or CTC documentation was never refreshed. That's eight failures, or $5,200.[2][4] A single return that mishandles HOH, EITC, CTC/ACTC/ODC, and AOTC together can hit the $2,600 ceiling on its own.[2][4]
Four Moves to Make Before the Files Pile Up
Split the intake question. The 2025 change is about the taxpayer claiming CTC/ACTC, not only the child. Build a distinct checkpoint for "which filer has the SSN required for CTC/ACTC" that's separate from the dependent's identifier check.[2]
Turn knowledge notes into a required field, not a memory. IRS guidance says preparers cannot ignore inconsistent or incomplete facts and must ask further questions when the story doesn't hold together — and both the questions and the answers need to be on record.[2][3]
Store each packet the way you would defend it, not the way you'd explain it out loud: Form 8867, the applicable worksheets, the documents relied on, and a record of how and from whom the information was obtained.[2][3]
Clean up signer handoffs. Nonsigning preparers still complete the form and hand it to the signing preparer, and one return can carry multiple Forms 8867.[2] Add a standard handoff note recording who made the covered determination, what changed since the original filing, and where the retained record lives. For the Form 8867 Checklist, see: https://www.intaxion.com/tools/form-8867-checklist.
Run the 20-Minute Audit Now
Pull ten recently touched returns that involve at least one covered category and ask five questions: Can a reviewer name the category that triggered Form 8867? Is the SSN answer explicit when CTC/ACTC is involved? Is the worksheet for each covered credit visible? Do the follow-up questions and the client's answers live in the same packet? Can the signer tell whether another preparer supplied part of the due-diligence work? If two or more answers come back "not quickly," the office needs a packet standard before amended-return season gets loud.
Source packet
1. About Form 8867: https://www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/about-form-8867
2. Instructions for Form 8867 (11/2025): https://www.irs.gov/instructions/i8867
3. Due diligence law, regulations and requirements: https://www.irs.gov/tax-professionals/eitc-central/due-diligence-law-regulations-and-requirements
4. Consequences of not meeting the due diligence requirements: https://www.irs.gov/tax-professionals/eitc-central/consequences-of-filing-eitc-returns-incorrectly
5. Publication 4687 (unverified — not independently confirmed by adversarial research; not cited in article text): https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p4687.pdf
6. Due diligence requirements for knowledge and recordkeeping (unverified — not independently confirmed by adversarial research): https://www.irs.gov/tax-professionals/eitc-central/due-diligence-requirements-for-knowledge-and-recordkeeping
Metadata
- Suggested slug: form-8867-due-diligence-reset
- Excerpt: The 2025-2026 Form 8867 reset is a workflow problem first: taxpayer SSNs for CTC/ACTC, knowledge notes, recordkeeping, and signer handoffs need a late-summer audit.
- CTA: See the Form 8867 Checklist at https://www.intaxion.com/tools/form-8867-checklist
- Shelf-life: Verify before reposting after 2026-11-15
- AI-likelihood self-score: 19/100
- Banned-phrase check: Y
- Human review notes: Unresolved — confirm whether the office wants "amended-return season" framing versus "late-summer cleanup" framing. Unresolved — confirm the Form 8867 Checklist page content matches the specific claims referenced here before publishing. Neither item has been resolved by this stage; both require human content-approval judgment.
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