Taxpayer asks:
My child attends public school. School ends at 3 every day, but I don’t get off of work until 5 so my child attends an after school program. Can I deduct this on my taxes? Does it matter that it’s at public school?
Taxgirl says:
You’re in luck! So long as the child is a qualifying dependent, which for purposes of your scenario means your dependent child under the age of 13 (some other exceptions apply), you can deduct qualifying child care expenses. You claim the expenses as part of the credit for child and dependent care expenses.
You are only entitled to the credit if it was necessary for you to work or local for work AND you must have earned income from wages, salaries, tips, other taxable employee compensation or net earnings from self-employment. Stay at home parents may not claim the credit.
The nonrefundable credit can be up to 35% of your qualifying expenses, depending upon your income, up to a maximum of $3,000 for one child or $6,000 for two or more children. These expenses must be reduced by the amount of any dependent care benefits provided by your employer that you exclude from your income, if any.
It’s also important to note that these costs must be characterized as child care. If your child is staying after school merely for tutoring or another program, that would not qualify. You also can’t include the cost of food, entertainment or other “extras” in the cost of care unless those expenses cannot be easily separated from the total. It also doesn’t matter if it’s private school or public school.
To claim the credit, you need to file a federal form 1040, form 1040A or form 1040NR. You may not use a form 1040-EZ. If you file a federal form 1040 or 1040NR, you’ll also attach a form 2441.
Like any good lawyer, I need to add a disclaimer: Unfortunately, it is impossible to give comprehensive tax advice over the internet, no matter how well researched or written. Before relying on any information given on this site, contact a tax professional to discuss your particular situation.
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You might also add that the school needs to give you there Tax ID number to claim the credit. The credit is usually 20% of the $3000 or $6000 child care expense.
See http://www.tinyurl.com/IRSpub503 for more details. The credit scales down as your income goes up. At that point, the Dependent Care Account, if available, makes more sense tax-wise. The DCA is money withheld pretax that you can use for these expenses, us to $5000/yr per family.
Joe