Do I have to enter childcare providers if expenses covered by FSA?

[lagringa]

We estimated our childcare expenses well and nearly all of it was covered by the amount we allocated for our pretax employer FSA account. Is there any way to avoid having to enter names and addresses and tax numbers for every provider? We had a dozen different summer camps, and it would be very time consuming to gather and enter all this information. It looks like our expenses are only around $100 above the reimbursed amount, so I would be happy to forego that deduction to avoid the hassle. Thank you.

[NCperson]

@lagringa in order to get the deduction, the information needs to be entered.

Technically, do you REALLY have to enter it....no, but then you lose the tax deductibility of what went into the FSA 😣....  and that is EVERYTHING - not just the $100 you reference below.  I suspect you are much better off spending the 30-60 minutes to enter everything than forgo the tax benefit.

Since the IRS is giving you a tax benefit, they want to know that you indeed spent the money AND be able to check that the other party reported that as income so they can get the money back!  

[lagringa]

Thanks. I'll deal with it. I have to make a bunch of phone calls and send emails to get the taxpayer ID numbers. So far most of them have been responsive.

[NCperson]

if you enter the contact information without the TIN / SSN, you would have to paper file - 😟

[Critter-3]

If you have an amount on box 10 of your W-2 then you MUST enter the info on the form 2441.  If you don't have an amount in box 10 then you can skip that section.