Dependent Care Tax Credit With Earned Income Less than $6000

[Artekus]

I am filing a joint return. My income is via W2 and my spouses income is from self-employment. The income from self-employment is attributed to her and my income is attributed to me. I have quadruple checked. That is not the problem.  And she showed a net profit. So that is not the problem either.  The online turbotax keeps saying "Because you entered $6,000 or less of earned income for" my spouse, we have to select student or disabled in order for it to allow the dependent care tax credit form to be filled out.

Earning more than $6k is not a requirement of the dependent care tax credit in irs publication 503.

Why won't it let us fill out the 2441 form when we meet all the requirements and where does it say in the publication or form instructions that earned income of 6k or greater is required to qualify?

[xmasbaby0]

The childcare credit is non-refundable.  If you owe no tax it does not do anything for you.  It is only used to reduce tax owed.

https://ttlc.intuit.com/questions/1900643-what-is-the-child-and-dependent-care-credit

[Artekus]

Taxes are owed so it should be allowed to be claimed.

[Artekus · Accepted solution]

There must be a glitch or something in the work flow for TurboTax form 2441, Dependent Care Credit. I think what set it off was I filled out my W2 and some deductions one day. Then when my wife's 1099s came in I went in and added it to her income. After that when I clicked the Dependent Care Credit, it must have not picked up the updated earned income for her and would just keep saying we didn't qualify if I didn't click student or disabled. I even called in and they couldn't figure out why it wasn't letting me and said they would note my account on the issue.

Well, I just went through to the Federal Review stage and then went back and made sure it didn't appear under the deductions list. After that I clicked more deductions and "revisited" the child dependent care section and it finally allowed it to go through past the student or disabled check boxes and allowed me to enter in the dependent care information. It must of reset the flag for her income when I pushed it through to the federal review stage. 

What a headache. I hope this helps someone.