I put my w-2 and my husband's W-2 but turbotax says earned income is less than $6000

[tigerfan1]

desktop version

[tigerfan1]

my spouse does have multiple w2s.  If you looked at just the first one I entered spouse would have income of less than $6,000, wondering if this is the issue.  I may delete that one and see if it fixes the issue.

[NCperson]

I am going to try and replicate the situation - can you please provide additional details on what you were entering?  you can give me dummy numbers if you feel so compelled .... we are talking two W-2s, one for each spouse, right? what codes are in box 12 for each spouse? are the IRA/ SEP boxes checked or not? what is the age of each spouse? 

[hephephep]

Desktop

[mmgonigal812]

Thank you so much for saying that 

I totally agree with you 

[MJM10]

I just encountered the same problem today Feb 29 when I tried to claim child and dependent care credit using TT Home and Business disc I purchased at Costco.

It said:

Because you entered <$6000. of earned income for both "husband" and "wife", we need to know if either of you were a fulltime student or disabled in order to calculate the max credit". I entered "no" and proceeded.
I don't understand the question given our combined income >$100,000. entered earlier.
Notwithstanding we did get the expected child care credit of 20% of expenditure. and the worksheet showed the correct income numbers and calculations.  So suggest you just proceed and check worksheet. MJM10

[NCperson]

I was able to replicate it as well; it is a bug.... trying to see if i can get one of the moderator's attention to escalate this..... 

it is supposed to be looking at line 15 of the 'earned Inc wks' which you can pull up in Forms View of the desktop version.  But it is not doing so. 

[NCperson]

I heard back from one of the power users and confirmed this is a known bug and they are working on it.

Normally, TT updates the software on Thursdays, so maybe this Thursday will be the lucky day on this one to be fixed????

[mmgonigal812]

I'm wondering about where people purchased the CD? 

I did purchased at costco and encountered this problem. 

I know that I cannot get the credit back but makes me upset knowing the fact that I wasted the money !!! 

[NCperson]

not to worry  - you always need to update the software in any event... don't you see the update requests every once in a while? 

open up TT and across the top is "online". click that and then click 'check for updates"

[Trontz]

I have this same problem. Has this bug been fixed?

[DMarkM1]

I was able to input 2 W2s; one for each spouse in TurboTax Home and Business Desktop and subsequently entered Child and Dependent Care Expenses and the credit updated appropriately without prompting a question due to less than $6K of earned income.    

[Davidmwj]

My tax preparer had the same issue.  Because of this TurboTax won’t let us e-file.  Any chance this gets fixed in a day or two?  I haven’t snail mailed my return in yet.  Thx

[DMarkM1]

I have been unable to duplicate this issue in the desktop Home and Business version.  It appears to be working at this time.  Are you working in a different version of TurboTax?

[Trontz]

I called the TurboTax help line and it turns out we didn't qualify for the child care credit. My wife's W-2 income was negated by the loss in her side business (reported on sched C). For purposes of the credit the IRS looks at both W-2 and schedule C income and because hers was negative in the aggregate, it's as if she didn't earn anything.