barb@pyuxa.UUCP (B E Nemeth) (03/13/86)
I have a question regarding whether or not I'm eligible to claim the child care credit. Both my husband and I work full time and pay a sitter weekly for child care for our 2 1/2 daughter. She's paid in cash and is not claiming this as income. In looking over the 1040A there is no place where I have to indicate who the sitter is. Since we agreed from the start that this was "under the table", I don't want to get my sitter in a prediciment, but if we're entitled to some credit, I'd like to grab it. Thank in advance
andy@altos86.UUCP (Andy Hatcher) (03/13/86)
I picked up the appropriate form from my local library (I don't remember the number), but one of the things I noticed on it was a question that asked if the service (child care) was provided in the home. If you answered yes, then it asked if you had filed the correct employer tax forms. This seemed to be designed to scare people out of applying for child care credit the withholding was not being done. Another strange thing about this form was that it asked you for the smaller of the two spouses salaries and then the smaller of this and $2400. And then you take a percentage (based on your combined salary) of this smaller number. So it seems that if one spouse had less than 2400 dollars income, you really shouldn't be paying for child care, you should be home taking care of the kids. Sort of putting the squeeze on anyone chronically unemployed and looking for work. Andy Hatcher vecpyr!altos86!andy