KeshaH
Expert Alumni

Deductions & credits

Whether you'd qualify for the child and dependent care credit on top of the dependent care benefits received would dependent on the number of children in care. 

 

If you only one child in care, you wouldn't qualify for the credit. The maximum amount of work-related expenses you can use to calculate the credit is $3,000. The $3,000 must be reduced by the amount of tax-free dependent care benefits received. In this case, if you received the max dependent care benefits of $5,000, there'd be no credit since the tax-free benefits exceed your work-related expenses.

 

If there's more than one child in care, the maximum amount of work-related expenses is $6,000. This would give you $1,000 worth of expenses that you can use to calculate the credit. 

 

If your maximum work-related expense exceeds your dependent care benefit and TurboTax is still not calculating the credit, make sure that you've assigned income to each spouse in the W-2 section.