Foster Care Tax Credit-AZ

[athoughtofyou]

How do I file the Foster Care Tax Credit for AZ on my state tax returns?

[NicoleU]

Per Arizona, a qualifying foster care charitable organization is a qualifying charitable organization that each operating year provides services to at least two hundred qualified individuals in Arizona. The charity must spend at least 50% of its budget on services to qualified individuals in this state.

In order to claim this "Credit for Contributions to Qualifying Foster Care Charitable Organizations".

You will need to go States Taxes, you will see Arizona, click Edit, you will need continue and answer any applicable questions until you see "Other Nonrefundable Credits". Once you see that, please check the box next, "Contributions to qualified charities (Form 321/ Form 352). then click continue, then you will see "Donations to Charitable Organizations".

Please see attached photos.

[richardfox01]

TurboTax does not pull up the list of qualified Arizona foster care organizations. I  went to the AZDOR webside and downloaded it, and obtained the organization number, which turbotax link would not go to. Now TurboTax does not recognize the organization name. Catholic Relief Services 

[BillM223]

It appears to me that the proper name for this agency is "Catholic Charities Community Services" (see the organization's website). This organization is indeed listed at the Arizona website that TurboTax links under the QFCO link for 2019. 

The code for Catholic Charities Community Services is 10000, according to the Arizona state website access through TurboTax.

[jeanscooper]

I was given an incomplete organization number for La Frontera Center, Inc. for the $400 donation I made to it for the Arizona foster care tax credit. I tied calling the number on the receipt but got no answer. I then emailed the person whose email I was given to get the correct organization number. I am very disappointed that Turbotax has the charitable organization numbers but not the foster care credit organization numbers. I was given 1129 on the receipt but it has to be a five digit organization number beginning with 1. I cannot file my return until I have the correct number to insert on my Arizona tax return.  Jean Cooper

[GiseleD]

Please click here and scroll down to the list of qualifying charities section. You should be able to look up the number this way.

@jeanscooper

[140942mark]

Instructions for completing a Turbotax form related to "credits" relating to AZ tax form 352 are very confusing. I've had difficulties with this particular item for the past 3 to 5 years and have never been satisfied that I completed it correctly. It's titled "Prior-Year Carry Over Information" and consists of 3 columns headed "Year of Original Credit", "Original Credit Amount", and "Amount of Original Credit Used in Prior Years". Under the first heading (for the 2020 version) are the years 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019. The taxpayer is supposed to fill in the blanks for each year under the second and third headings, I assume using information listed in their tax returns for each year.

The instructions above the table don't make sense at all. Can anyone explain in detail how this table is supposed to be filled out and what exactly the third heading means?

Frankly, I don't understand why this information can't be transferred electronically from my past returns directly into this table.

[MaryM428]

There is a limit on the amount of money that you can donate each year to Foster Care organizations.

The limit is $500 for a single filer and $1000 for filing jointly.

So in any year that you donated more than $500 as a single or $1000 as joint filer, you will carry over the amount that you could not get credit for in that year.

As an example:  In 2015, you filed joint and donated $1400 to foster care.  You were able to claim $1000 and had a $400 carryover The original carryover for 2016 is $400

In 2016, you donated $1000 and your carryover in 2016 becomes $400 in the first column and $0 in the second column because you used none of the original credit that year

In 2017, you donated $500, You can claim up to $1000 so your first column with use $400 of the original credit and you deduct $900 total ($500 donation plus $400 carryover)

In 2018, you donated $2000 so you can get credit for $1000 and then put $1000 into the carryover for 2019

In 2020, if you had donated zero, you could still take the 2019 carryover and get the $1000 credit.