Why is my Dependent tax credit $200 when it should be $1,200? I should get $600 per child. $200 makes no sense at all. I had $18,000 in childcare payments.

[xmasbaby0 · Accepted solution]

The childcare credit is a NON-refundable credit.  It can reduce your tax owed down to zero, but it is not added to your refund.

[sfcorfman]

I had the same question but saw an answer from 2023 that makes sense if you had $5k in childcare FSA (but it only makes sense if the credit calculation hasn't changed since 2023, which I did not research). Here is a copy/paste of part of the answer I found: 

"The FSA benefit is subtracted from the overall allowable total.  If you provided care for 2 or more children, the maximum eligible cost is $6000.  Since you received a $5000 tax-free FSA, the amount of remaining  expenses eligible for the credit is $1000.  $200 is a 20% credit, "

See Re: Why is my dependent care credit only $200, not $1200? I had over $15k in child care costs for my...