tax question about child care?

Question

I am a single mother to a 9 month old. I have had my child in daycare for about 2 months, prior to that, she was at a friends house to whom i paid 75 a week. Should I get a statement from her for when i do my taxes or will it not matter.

Answer 1

You need to ask her for her social security number, and put her information and the amount you paid her on form 2441 that you'll file with your tax return. The information from the daycare will also go on form 2441.

Answer 2

The answer depends on whether you owe taxes or not. If you file as head of household and have one child, you can earn up to $14,650 and owe no tax. If you earned more than that in 2007, then you can get a credit (a reduction in tax you owe) of between 20% and 35% of your child care expenses you paid while you were working or looking for work. Your credit is on a maximum of $3,000 of child care.

So if the credit will benefit you, you must have the SSN, name, and address of the person who cared for your child in order to claim the credit.

You are not required to take all the credit. It would be OK to just take the daycare center expenses if that is all you need.

Answer 3

You need to disclose your friend's name and social security number on your taxes (2441 form) which is for child care. Then your friend needs to include all of the money that you paid on her taxes as income. If your friend does not give you her social security number then you are out of luck for this tax credit.

Answer 4

Give your friend a form W-10 (available at irs.gov).

In order to claim this as a tax deduction on your taxes, she is required to claim as income on hers. If she's honest, she'll have no qualms about giving you the information you need.

You can still claim the expense--but you'll have to go on record that she refused to give you the information.