How much is the child tax credit for two children? Why is it only showing 842$ for my child dependent tax credit?

[Vanessa · Accepted solution]

The child tax credit is $2000 per child, but not everyone is eligible for the full Child Tax Credit or the full Additional Child Tax Credit.  

If you look at line 11 of your 1040, your Child Tax Credit cannot exceed that number.  So, if your tax liability is only $842, that is the maximum Child Tax Credit you will be eligible for.  If it is zero, then you would not get any child tax credit or Other Dependent Credit.  This is a non-refundable Credits and will only reduce your tax liability to zero.

The Additional Child Tax Credit is refundable. The refundable portion is approximately 15% of your Earned income along with a few other calculations.

[Sudderth623]

If I have two children, both meeting eligibility for a Child Tax Credit, but have zeroed out my tax liability, I understand I am not eligible for the Child Tax Credit.  But, am I able to increase my refund as an  Additional Tax Child Credit.

[xmasbaby0]

Maybe--depending on how much you earned by working.  Even if you have zeroed out your tax liability it is possible you could receive the refundable part of the credit--or some of it.

There has been lots of hype in the news about the new $2000 Child Tax Credit.  Unfortunately, some people do not yet understand that it does not mean they will automatically receive $2000 per child just for filing a tax return.

Do not assume your refund will include $2000 per child for child tax credits.  It does not work that way.  The CTC is used first to reduce your tax liability to zero. After that, there is a refundable portion —up to $1400 — called the Additional Child Tax Credit that is calculated based on the amount of income you earned.  You do not necessarily get the maximum amount.  You get 15% of the amount of income earned above $2500--UP to the maximum amount possible.

If your child turned 17 in 2018, even on the last day of 2018, you do not get the child tax credit.  There are no exceptions to the rule.  You can still claim your child as a dependent.

Your child must have a Social Security number to get the CTC. 

If your child was born in 2018 you need to say the child lived with you for the WHOLE year.

If your child lived with you for less than half the year you cannot get CTC.

If you did not earn at least $2500 you cannot receive the child tax credit.  Beyond that amount the CTC you receive is affected by your tax liability and the amount you earned.  You might not get the full $2000 of CTC.

The child tax credit is reduced by $50 for every $1000 of AGI over these limits:

Married filing jointly                $400,000    (CTC disappears at $440,000)

Single, Head of Household, Married Filing Separately or qualifying widower               $200,000  (CTC disappears at $240,000)

Look at your 2018 tax return to see the credits you received:

Child tax credit line 12a

Additional Child Tax Credit line 17b   (schedule 8812)

Credit for Other Dependents line 12a

https://ttlc.intuit.com/questions/1900923-what-is-the-child-tax-credit

https://ttlc.intuit.com/questions/3029430-why-is-my-child-tax-credit-smaller-this-year

https://ttlc.intuit.com/questions/4505689-why-am-i-getting-the-credit-for-other-dependents-instead-o...

https://ttlc.intuit.com/questions/4499708-what-is-the-500-credit-for-other-dependents-family-tax-cre...

[dhshih]

I had similar issues when I was filing.  I have 2 kids, both under the age of 17.   My AGI is below $400K, and re-verified that they do qualify for the $2k credit, but Turbo Tax was only calculating one kid at $2k, and the other one a $500.    I was stuck on this for awhile, trying to figure this out.  I think I found the issue within the TurboTax program that I did that was causing this program to do this.  It was part of my dependent details, where I had to uncheck  the Social Security saying this was NOT valid for employment.  Once I unchecked it (as my kids SS could use use for employment), that fixed the apparent "issue".   

I am now getting $2k credit for both of my minors.  Hope this helps other that maybe in similar situation.  I almost lost out on $1500 because of this checkbox..  

TurboTax should somehow ask everyone to verify this...  this would have been a huge miss by TurboTax I feel.

Good luck all,