John M. Hoffman & Associates CPAs

Frequently Asked Tax Questions

Child Care / Dependent Care Benefits

"What are qualified child care expenses?"

Qualified expenses are amounts paid for household and other service for the care of your dependent while you worked or looked for work. Typical expenditures are for places like "Kinder Care", payments to after school programs, day camps (even day sports camps), and people who perform such services in your home.

Overnight camp expenditures are NOT qualified expenditures.

It is critically important to understand that in order to claim the child or dependent care credit, or to take advantage of the dependent care benefit program at your place of work, you need to have:

For each provider:

• Name

• Address (street, city, state, and zip)

• Taxpayer ID # (social security number if it is an individual)

• Amount paid to each provider

You also need to report to us how much was spent for each qualifying person.

This essentially means that if you are paying someone "under the table" or off the books and perhaps that person is not claiming that income for tax purposes, you probably don't want to take a credit for those expenditures. Never a good idea to upset the person who cares for your loved one!

Don't forget that when you enroll your child in a summer soccer camp that you want to claim a tax credit for the following April, it is a good idea to get the taxpayer id information that summer as the camp may not be reachable or even in business the following April!