Article Highlights: Non-refundable vs. Refundable Credit Childcare Credit Earned Income Tax Credit Child & Dependent Tax Credit Saver’s Credit Vehicle Tax Credits Adoption Credit Residential Energy-Efficient Property Credit Tax credits are a tax benefit that offsets your actual tax liability, as opposed to a tax deduction, which reduces your income. Congress provides tax credits to individual taxpayers for a number of reasons, including as a form of assistance for lower-income taxpayers, to stimulate employment, and to stimulate certain investments, among other things. Tax credits come in two types: non-refundable and refundable. A non-refundable credit can only reduce your tax liability to zero; any excess is either carried forward or is simply lost. In the case of a refundable credit, if there is excess after reducing your tax liability to zero, the excess is refundable. The following is a summary of some of the tax credits available to individual taxpayers: Childcare Credit – Parents who work or are looking for work often must arrange for care of their children during working hours or while searching for work. If this describes your situation and your children requiring care are under 13 years of age, you may qualify for a childcare tax credit. The credit ranges from 20% to 35% of non-reimbursed expenses, based upon your income, with the higher percentages applying to lower-income taxpayers and the lower percentages applying to higher-income taxpayers. Applicable Percentage of AGI for the Childcare Credit AGI Over But Not Over Applicable Percent AGI Over But Not Over Applicable Percent 0 15,000 35 29,000 31,000 27 15,000 17,000 34 31,000 33,000 26 17,000 19,000 33 33,000 35,000 25 19,000 21,000 32 35,000 37,000 24 21,000 23,000 31 37,000 39,000 23 23,000 25,000 30 39,000 41,000 22 25,000 27,000 29 41,000 43,000 21 27,000 29,000 28 43,000 No Limit 20 The maximum expense amount allowed is $3,000 for one child and $6,000 for two or more, and the credit is non-refundable, which means it can only reduce your tax to zero, and the excess is lost. As an example, say your adjusted gross income (AGI) is between $33,000 and $35,000. Your credit percentage would be 25%. If you paid childcare expenses of $4,000 for two children under the age of 13, your tax credit would be $1,000 ($4,000 x 25%). If your tax for the year was $5,000, the credit would reduce that tax to $4,000. On the other hand, if your tax for the year was $800, the credit would reduce your tax to zero, and the $200 excess credit would be lost. This credit also applies when a taxpayer or spouse is disabled or a full-time student, in which case special “earned income” allowances are provided for months when the taxpayer or spouse is disabled or a full-time student. Please call this office for additional details if this situation applies in your case. Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) – Congress established the EITC as an income supplement for working individuals in lower-paying employment. If you qualify, it could be worth as much as $6,431 in 2018. It is a refundable credit. The EITC is based on the amount of your earned income (income from work for wages and/or self-employment) and whether there are qualifying children in your household. Qualifying children are those who live with you for over half the year, are related, and are under the age of 19 or a full-time student under the age of 24. The credit increases as your earned income increases. The table below shows the earned income at which the maximum credit is achieved for 2018. Qualifying Children Earned Income Maximum Credit None 6,780 $519 1 $10,180 $3,461 2 $14,290 $5,716 3 or more $14,290 $6,431 The credit amount phases out after reaching the maximum based on filing status and number of qualifying children. The 2018 phase-out ranges are shown in the table below. Qualifying Children Filing Status Phase-out Range None Married Filing Joint $14,170–20,950 Others $8,490–15,270 1 Married Filing Joint $24,350–46,010 Others $18,660–40,320 2 Married Filing Joint $24,350–51,492 Others $18,660–45,802 3 or more Married Filing Joint $24,350–54,884 Others $18,660–49,194 In addition, there are some qualification requirements: you, your spouse (if married and filing jointly), and each qualifying child must have a valid Social Security number, and you cannot use the filing status married filing separately. You cannot be a qualifying child of another person, your investment income for the year cannot exceed $3,500 (2018), and you cannot exclude earned income from working abroad. If you do not have a qualifying child, you must be at least age 25 but under 65 at the end of the year. Even though this credit can be worth thousands of dollars to a low-income family, the IRS estimates as many as 25 percent of people who qualify for the credit do not claim it, simply because they don’t understand the criteria. If you qualified for but failed to claim the credit on your return for 2015, 2016, and/or 2017, you can still claim it for those years by filing an amended return or an original return, if you have not previously filed. Please call for assistance. Members of the military can elect to include their nontaxable combat pay in their earned income for the earned income credit. If that election is made, the military member must include in their earned income all nontaxable combat pay they received for the year. Child & Dependent Tax Credit – As an aid to families with children, the tax reform increased the child tax credit from $1,000 to $2,000 for each qualified child. A qualified child for this tax credit is one who is under age 17 at the end of the year, is related, is not self-supporting, lived with you over half the year, has a Social Security number, and is claimed as your dependent. The refundable portion of this credit is equal to 15% of your earned income but limited to $1,400. Beginning in 2018, you are also able to claim a non-refundable credit of $500 for each of your dependents who do not qualify for the child credit. For both the child and dependent credits, the credit begins to phase out for married taxpayers with an AGI of $400,000 ($200,000 for others). Saver’s Credit – Congress created the non-refundable saver’s credit as a means of stimulating retirement savings among lower-income individuals. It helps to offset part of the first $2,000 that workers voluntarily contribute to traditional or Roth individual retirement arrangements (IRAs), SIMPLE-IRAs, SEPs, 401(k) plans, 403(b) plans for employees of public schools and certain tax-exempt organizations, 457 plans for state or local government employees, and the Thrift Savings Plan for federal employees. The saver’s credit is available in addition to any other tax savings that apply as a result of contributing to retirement plans. The credit is a percentage of the first $2,000 contributed to an eligible retirement plan. The following table illustrates the percentage based upon filing status and AGI for 2018.