Form 2441 is not summing up the column (d) of line 2

[leochens]

Hi, I am trying to input my credit for child and dependent care expenses. I filed joint, and already input income (which includes $5,000 dependent care benefits, W2, box 10). My turbotax is not input anything in line 3 at all. I play around W2 and seems like the TurboTax doesn't sum up column (d) and column (d) is not calculated correctly, if my W2 Box 10 is over 3,000.

Please note that my input to the total dependent care expense is 17,706.

When I try to play around and reduce W2 Box 10 to under 3,000 then everything is calculated. Is the line 3 cap to be 3000 minus the W2 Box 10? (which doesn't sound right according to the form) or is there a bug in turbotax? Can anyone help?

[BillM223]

It is difficult to imagine why the designers did what they did, but you are describing two different cases: one in which you can't get the credit and one in which you might.

In the first case, you have $5,000 in box 10. Since the most you can spend on a child and apply it to the credit is $3,000, and since anything that is in the FSA cannot apply to the credit (that would be double-dipping), it doesn't make any difference what you spent on your child line 3. So I guess they just left it as zero.

In the second case, the amount in the FSA falls to below the $3,000 limit, so now it can make a difference, so line 3 is completed and the calculation continues to see if you get the credit or not.

[Bsch4477]

Your $5,000 in child care benefits makes you ineligible for the child care credit since you have already received the maximum tax free benefit.