Claiming the Credit

To claim the credit for child and dependent care expenses, you need to fill out Parts I and II of IRS Form 2441, Child and Dependent Care Expenses, if you're filing IRS Form 1040. If you are filing the 1040A, you may use Schedule 2, Parts I and II.

Planning Tools You can download Form 2441 and Schedule 2 to aid in your financial planning.

Either of these forms requires you to provide identification information for both the care provider(s) and the qualifying children or disabled persons. The forms help you to compute your credit by comparing your allowable expenses with your wages and other earnings (and those of your spouse, if married). Your credit amount as shown on Line 11 of the 2441 is carried to Line 48 of your Form 1040, where it will be directly subtracted from the taxes you owe. If you use Schedule 2, the credit amount as shown on Line 11 is carried to Line 31 of Form 1040A.

If you are using Form 2441 to claim a credit for expenses you incurred in 2004, but did not pay until 2005, you can increase the amount of credit you can claim, but you will have to attach a statement to your tax return explaining how you computed the credit, as well as the name, I.D. number, and address of the care provider for the 2004 expenses. Get IRS Publication 503, Child and Dependent Care Expenses, for more details. You can obtain any IRS Publication for free by calling 1-800-TAX-FORM; most popular publications are also posted on the IRS website.