I am also a user like you and not a tax professional. I noticed that lot of questions here were left unanswered! Probably the so called tax professionals who watch here ... will reply only if they are paid! So, I am posting what I know ... may not exactly what you want ....
In case of Dependent Care FSA, you get only what you put. So, in your case you can at best get the tax benefit of $2K only. Unless DC-FSA is actually deducted from your pay check, IRS will not give tax benefit. But you can try one caveat. You have 4 more days left in the year. So pay a lumpsum of (10.5 - (5 - 2)) = 7.5K one shot to the provider in these four days and get a receipt. Then claim 7.5K credit by attaching form 2441 to your 1040 (read publication 503, not hard to read). BTW, you need to fill out 2441 worksheet to find the credit limit that applies to your income. It could be more or could be less than 7.5K. I am assuming that you will anyway end up paying the provider whether DC-FSA is approved or not. So you don't lose anything by paying 7.5K that you anyhow owe. If you owe less, pay only that much. You need to take out (5 - 2) out of 10.5K because next year jan to may, your employer will give that credit next year. But before you do it helps you are not, try filling 2441 worksheet to see if you qualify for the credit at all. Usually employers when they offer 5K limit, that is usually most folks who get DC-FSA qualify. So it is possible that you may not get any credit :(
This is a trick ... looks harmless ...
