I have one child. Used an FSA account for maximum $5000. In the 15% tax bracket. I spent an additional $3000 on child care. Can I claim child care credit on the $3000?

No. You cannot claim the additional $3000 if you are already claiming the amount of FSA. The IRS does not allow double-deduction. You can utilize either the Dependent Care FSA or take the Dependent Care Tax Credit, but you cannot take a tax credit for expenses that have been reimbursed by the FSA.

To determine the available credit, you can consider up to $3000/annually of child care expenses for one dependent, and a maximum of $6000/annually for 2 or more dependents. Depending on your  adjusted gross income, the maximum credit (dollar-for-dollar offset of tax liability) is:

•  30% ($720 annually for 1 child) for those earning less than $10,000 annually...
•  decreasing by 1% for each $2000 of additional annual income to...
• 20% ($480 annually for 1 child) for those earning over $28,000 annually.

In other words, the higher your earnings, the lower your tax credit

In general, those with less than a 15% tax bracket will be better served by the Dependent Care Tax Credit. IRS Publication 503 "Child and Dependent Care Expenses" provides full information about this tax credit and offers worksheets and aids for performing the calculations.

Specifically:

• If you are earning a moderate to high income, and particularly if you are filing taxes as "Married, Filing Jointly" (combining incomes with a spouse), the Dependent Care FSA is probably more advantageous. Reasons: Your tax bracket is probably higher than 15%, the threshold generally regarded as the dividing point between the Dependent Care Tax Credit (best for those earning LESS) and the Dependent Care FSA (best for those earning MORE).
• Logically, if you have 1 child, the $5000 available through the Dependent Care FSA is probably more generous than the credit arising from the $3000 limit imposed by the Dependent Care Tax Credit. (See section on Dependent Care Tax Credit, above.)
• Finally, the FSA saves not only income taxes (federal and state), but social security taxes as well. There are no social security tax savings offered by the Dependent Care Tax Credit.  (Note: Your social security benefits could be slightly reduced by paying less social security taxes.)

The $3000 was out of pocket expense and not reimbursed by the FSA. I had the $5000 in FSA and had to spend $3000 out of pocket. I want to know about the out of pocket expense. Do I claim any of that or not?

Unfortunately you cannot because you are already claiming the FSA, and you have only one child. The maximum you can claim for a child is $3000. If you had 2 childs, you could have claimed additional $1000 from the out of pocket expense.

I do see it now. Thank you.