 So see the table under amount of credit later. So we'll dive into some more details in a bit here. For additional information about the credit, you can see form 2441 and its instructions available at the IRS.gov website. All right, so the 2021 enhancements to dependent care benefits have expired as well. So another kind of item, they changed a lot of things in 2021. They're kind of going back to the norm that was in place before that whole thing. So the changes to dependent care benefits under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 have expired for 2022. The maximum amount that can be excluded from an employee's income through a dependent care assistance program is $5,000, $2,500 if married filing separately. Dependent care benefits are reported on form 2441 line 12. Temporary special rules for dependent care flexible spending arrangements, FSAs. So section 214 of the Taxpayer, Certainty and Disaster Tax Relief Act of 2020 provides temporary COVID-19 relief for dependent care FSAs. This legislation allows employers to amend their dependent care plan to allow unused amounts to be used in subsequent years. Unused amounts from 2020 and or 2021 are added to the maximum amount of dependent care benefits that are allowed for 2022. So for more information, you can see the line 13 instructions in the instructions for forum 2441. Notice 2021-15, 2021-10. And there's some more information you could take a look at here to find that information if you want to dive into that in more detail. All right, let's get into the reminders. Personal exemption suspended. So for 2022, you can't claim a personal exemption for yourself, your spouse, or your dependents. So that's been in place for a little while here. You'll recall that there used to be a kind of a system where when you had a dependent, you would say what's the major benefit of say having a dependent? One was that you had an exemption, which was kind of like a deduction for them in an exemption for yourself and so on and so forth. They, in an attempt to simplify the tax code, they basically removed the exemptions and they adjusted the major benefit would be the credit, the credits that would be that you'd get for like a dependent, for example. So taxpayer identification number needed for each qualifying person. You must include online to a forum 2441, child and dependent care expenses, the name and taxpayer identification number, generally the social security number, SSN of each qualifying person. See the taxpayer identification number under who is a qualified person. We'll talk about that later, but clearly if you're gonna be having a credit related to a qualifying child for these expenses, then you're gonna have to give them a number related to them because the IRS sees them as a number, typically the social security number. You may have to pay employment taxes. So if you pay someone to come to your home and care for your dependent or spouse, you may be a household employer who has to pay employment taxes. So in other words, if you're in a situation, of course, where someone is basically working for you in your home, then the question is, well, now are they a contractor? No, it looks more like they're gonna be an employee type of situation where you're gonna be subject usually to payroll, but you might at least have employment taxes with regards to it, right? Social security and Medicare that you have to deal with in certain situations. So usually you aren't a household employer if the person who cares for your dependent or spouse does so at his or her home or place of business, see do you have a household employee later. All right, let's get into the introduction. This publication explains the tests you must meet to claim the credit for child and dependent care expenses. It explains how to figure and claim the credit. That's what we wanna know. You may be able to claim the credit if you pay someone to care for your dependent who is under age 13. So we have another kind of age test here. You'll recall when we thought about age tests with regards to do kind of be claimed as a dependent where we had 19 or 24, if they're a qualifying or if they're a student, for example, do they qualify for the child tax credit? We had an age test of like 17, I believe. And now we've got this age thing here of 13. So you gotta keep all these kind of ages in your mind. So who is under age 13 or for your spouse or dependent who isn't able to care for himself or herself? The credit can be up to 35% of your employment related expenses to qualify. You must pay these expenses so you and your spouse if filing jointly can work or look for work. So that's the general thrust of the aim of this credit. What's the aim of the credit? To allow people to work or look for work. So you're now paying for care for the child in order to do that. And so a lot of the rules that we wanna think of, we wanna think of from that perspective. Why does this rule make sense? You would think they're trying to design the law so that they're giving you a benefit if these expenses are in alignment with allowing you to work or look for work. All right, so this publication also discusses some of the employment tax rules for household employers. Now, if part of what you're doing then in order to work is not taking your child to someone else for care or something like that to allow you to work or search for work but hiring someone as a household employer then you get into the situation of is the person just like any kind of schedule C kind of thing which is are you hiring this person as an employee or are they an independent contractor is the general kind of idea. If they're working in your home and you have complete control and you set the hours and all that kind of stuff it's looking more and more like they are an employee or a house and you're a household employer which means you may have to deal with the payroll tax kind of stuff social security and Medicare in essence. So dependent care benefits. If you receive any dependent care benefits from your employer during their year you may be able to exclude all or part of them from your income. You must complete form 2441 part three before you configure the amount of your credit see dependent care benefits under how to figure the credit later so we'll dive into that at a future point. Useful items you may want to see so you got publications so the so some of the gray areas if you want to get into more detail for the research see here are some publications you can find on the IRS website. So you got 501 dependence so obviously much of this is going to be related to does someone qualify as a dependent so there's some overlap there the standard deduction and filing information. So then we've got the 926 household employer's tax guide so if you're in a situation where now you're solving this problem of being able to work by having care of someone who's a household employer then you can dive into that issue which could deal with social security and Medicare and whether you're a household employer form and instructions so you've got the form 2441 child and dependent care expenses so obviously you can look up that form and related instructions schedule H form 1040 household employment taxes and W10 dependent care providers identification and certification.