I alone am solely financially responsible for my son and receive no child support. What should my credit be? And where do i claim this?

[xmasbaby0 · Accepted solution]

The child-related credits you receive will be affected in a big way by how much income you earned, so there is not a "set" amount you will receive when you claim your child as a dependent.  You claim your child as a dependent in My Info.  Enter the information about your child and put in his Social Security number.  Make sure you say he lived with you the whole year and when you come to the question about whether the child paid for over half his support say NO.

Your refund is not broken down by how much you "get" for each dependent.  Each dependent gives you a personal exemption of $4050, which lowers the amount of your income that  you are taxed on.  It is not a refund.

There are several child-related credits you *may* get if you have a dependent child.

You might be getting the Child Tax Credit--that is not a refund--it lowers the tax you owe, up to $1000 per child, but if you do not owe tax then you may not get the full amount of CTC.  In some cases, you could qualify for the "Additional Child Tax Credit" which is a refundable credit, and would increase your refund.  If you qualify for this credit, TurboTax calculates and automatically adds it to your refund.

You might be able to claim the child and dependent care credit if you paid someone to take care of your child so you could work. This is not a refundable credit, so it will not be in your refund.  It can lower the tax you owe.

You might qualify for Earned Income Credit, which is a refundable credit if you worked and earned income. The EIC is based on the amount you earned.  If you do qualify for EIC, TurboTax automatically calculates the amount and adds it to your refund.

Look at your tax return to see the child-related /dependent credits you received:

Child Tax Credit 1040A  line 35 1040 line 49

Additional Child Tax Credit   1040A  line 43 1040 line 67

Child & Dependent Care Credit  1040A line 31 1040 line 49

Earned Income Credit 1040A line 42a           1040 line 66a

The children you listed as your dependents will appear on line 6c

Personal Exemptions   1040A line 26 1040 line 42