Colorado State Child Tax Credit - Different Filing than Federal?

[thicken]

My spouse and I file Married-Separately and we split our children amongst our individual federal tax returns to each receive Federal CTC and account for our daycare FSA savings.

My income is too high to qualify for CO State CTC and I effectively don't attempt to claim for it and they are not listed in dependents on my state tax form. My question is whether dependents can be filed differently on the State taxes or have to match my Federal? My spouse's income would qualify for CTC for both children if she were to claim them on the State forms.

CO DR104 seems to suggest all dependents should be listed regardless as to whether you claim a credit on them. So wasn't sure if I could elect the CTC on one taxpayer, but not the other.

[AmyC]

Dependents should match but there may be an exception. For the child tax credit, the child must be on your federal return.

DR 0104 Book states:

Who qualifies as your dependent? For Colorado income tax purposes, your dependents will generally be the same as the dependents you claimed on IRS form 1040. The instructions for IRS form 1040 and IRS Publication 501, can help you determine whether a person is your dependent. There may be additional or different requirements for you to claim a particular Colorado tax credit for a dependent. However, you should list all of your dependents in this section even if you cannot claim them for any Colorado tax credits.

For the child tax credit, the state is specific and DR 0104 Book states:

Does the dependent qualify for the Colorado child tax credit? If a dependent meets the following requirements, check the Child Tax Credit box. In general, the dependent must be a qualifying child for federal income tax purposes in order to check the box. 

• The dependent must be your son, daughter, stepchild, foster child, brother, sister, half brother, half sister, stepbrother, or stepsister, or a descendant of any of them (for example, your grandchild, niece, or nephew) (see Relationship Test in the Qualifying Child section of IRS Publication 501). 

• The dependent must be under age 17 at the end of the tax year. 

• The dependent must have lived with you for more than half of the tax year (see Residency Test in the Qualifying Child section of IRS Publication 501). 

• The dependent must not have provided more than half of their own support for the tax year (see Support Test in the Qualifying Child section of IRS Publication 501). 

• The dependent must not be filing a joint return for the tax year (unless that joint return is filed only to claim a refund of withheld income tax or estimated tax paid) (see Joint Return Test in the Qualifying Child section of IRS Publication 501). If you check the Child Tax Credit box, go to form DR 0104CN to determine whether you qualify for the Colorado child tax cred