Credit for Child and Dependent Care Expenses

Time Requirement: 30 minutes

Purpose

This lesson teaches students how to determine a taxpayer's eligibility for the credit and use Form 2441 to calculate the amount.

Objectives

• Determine if a taxpayer is eligible for the credit
• Calculate the amount of the credit

Teaching the Lesson

Prompt students to share what they know about the child and dependent care credit.

Refer students who may want to work independently to Publication 4491, Credit for Child and Dependent Care Expenses.

Key References

This lesson refers to the following publications and forms:

• Form 13614-C
• Form 2441
• Publication 4012, Tab G, Nonrefundable Credits, and Tab I, Earned Income Credit
• Publication 17, Chapter 32, Child and Dependent Care Credit

All references to materials can be found by clicking the Job Aids and Media buttons. There are also links to helpful tools that can be found on the irs.gov public portal. For this lesson, the student can link to the following sites for additional help:

• Tax Tips: Understanding Child and Dependent Care Credit
• Tax Topic: Child and Dependent Care Credit

TaxSlayer® Demos and Tutorials

It is recommended to go to the Practice Lab and access the latest TaxSlayer tutorial for this lesson. The TaxSlayer tutorials can be found by going to the Practice Lab and clicking the link for TaxSlayer IRS training.

Publication 4012, Tab G, Nonrefundable Credits, Tab I, Earned Income Credit, includes how to enter Credit for Child and Dependent Care Expenses in TaxSlayer.