Q. How can I best qualify for the Child tax credit?
A. There are no steps you can take, at tax filing time, to improve your child tax credit benefit. You enter a child, under age 17, as a dependent and you enter your earned income, usually via a form W-2. TurboTax does the rest.
If you are not getting the full $2000, it is most likely because your income is too low. The child tax credit (CTC) is limited to your tax liability. The CTC is a non-refundable credit and can only reduce your income tax to 0, It can not help you beyond eliminating your tax liability.
But, if you have more than $2500 of earned income, some or all of it is usually given back to you thru the "Additional Child tax credit". That is, part of the CTC may be on line 28 of form 1040 (2021- 2023) instead of line 19. The ACTC is calculated on form 8812 and is basically 15% of your earned income over $2500. The ACTC is a maximum of $1600 (2023) ($1500 for 2022) per child, not $2000.
