Why does my child tax credit go down when I enter my clean vehicle tax credit information?

[sarahitangelita1]

If I dont enter my clean vehicle information, i get the full 2000 per child but once i enter my EV information it deducts it to 1600 per child.

[xmasbaby0]

What are you seeing on line 19?   And on line 28?   The maximum amount of the "refundable" child tax credit is $1600.    If you are seeing $1600 per child on line 28 you are getting as much added to your refund as you can receive as part of your refund.

Look at your 2023 Form 1040 to see the child-related credits you received

PREVIEW 1040

https://ttlc.intuit.com/questions/1901539-how-do-i-preview-my-turbotax-online-return-before-filing

Child Tax Credit line 19

Credit for Other Dependents line 19

Earned Income Credit line 27

Additional Child Tax Credit line 28

[DoninGA]

Your tax liability was reduced to zero so the $400 nonrefundable portion of the Child Tax Credit could not be used.

[Hal_Al]

The child tax credit  (CTC) is  limited to your tax liability. The CTC is a non-refundable credit and can only reduce your income tax to 0, It can not help you beyond eliminating your tax liability. The vehicle credit already reduced you tax to zero, so you get no CTC. 

But, if you have more than $2500 of earned income, some of the CTC is usually given back to you thru the "Additional Child tax credit". That is, part of the CTC may be on line 28 of form 1040 (2021- 2023) instead of line 19. The  ACTC is calculated on form 8812 and  is basically 15% of your earned income over $2500. The ACTC is a maximum of $1600 (2023) ($1500 for 2022) per child, not $2000.