Can I pay my spouse $6000? I work on a W-2 and my spouse doesn't work. What would be the affect on our joint income if I did pay my spouse?

[Nathaniel]

Can I pay my spouse $6000? I work on a W-2 and my spouse doesn't work. What would be the affect on our joint income if I did pay my spouse?

I would like to claim child care expenses for our children that we place in daycare, but my spouse has no income. How would I go about documenting this appropriately?

[SweetieJean]

Pay your spouse to do what exactly?

[Critter]

Aside from that is so wrong( tax fraud) ... by the time she reports the SE income for some made up self employed business  & pays the federal, state & SE taxes on that $6000 you would actually owe more than you could possibly get for the credit ... so it is a worthless and illegal effort ... don't do it.

[TaxGuyBill]

There are a couple of exceptions to the requirement that your spouse must have income.  Why did you place your child in daycare if your spouse did not work?

[Carl]

Unless you are "at least" self-employed and report your business income/expenses on SCH C, there is no way you can legally hire your spouse as an employee or contractor for anything. If you are self-employed, then provide the details. Single Member LLC? Multi-member LLC? S-Corp? C-Corp? Partnership? Something else?

[Hal_Al]

Since you "work on a W-2", there's no way you can pay your spouse for anything to get her income.

[SweetieJean]

I agree. This cannot be done.