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| a nonresident alien at any time during the year, then this would be the only way that they can be considered unmarried for tax purposes or for head of household purposes. Other than this, they are pretty much set to be considered married and they would have to file a married filing jointly or married filing separately tax return for the year. Otherwise, it would be considered breaking the rules and this is the reason California has come up with tougher enforcement efforts on head of household tax returns. |
| Only certain relatives can qualify you for the head of household filing status. If the qualifying person is not your relative, you cannot qualify for the Head of Household filing status. |
| However, the person can be related to you in a legal manner. The qualifying person can be your eligible foster child placed under your care by authorized placement agency or by the courts. Once this eligible foster child is placed with you by the authorized agencies, you are able to claim an exemption for the child. If for some reason, the child does not qualify for you to take exemption for him or her, you cannot count this child as your qualifying child for head of household purposes. You must be able to claim an exemption for the person whom qualifies you for the head of household filing status. The qualifying person must be related to you either by blood or by legal means such as when you have a foster child or an adopted child to be considered as your qualifying child for head of household purposes. |
| For example, you paid $5,100 in child care, you are single and you earned $28,000 for the entire year. You have on qualifying child. Your child and dependent care expenses credit for tax year 2014 is $420. |
| If you pay someone for child care expenses which you incur which allow you and your spouse to work or look for work will qualify you to take a child and dependent care expenses credit on your California tax return. You can take the credit if you file as single, married filing jointly, qualifying widow or widower, head of household filing status. However, you cannot take the child and dependent care expenses credit if your filing status is married filing separately. Your child and dependent care expenses credit is a percentage of the federal credit and it depends on your income. In order to figure out the California amount, you must first figure out the federal amount and then apply the percentage to the federal child and dependent care expenses credit amount. The rules for federal and California concerning the child and dependent care expenses credit are very much alike. For example, both federal and California require that your dependent qualifying child be under age 13 at the time child care is provided. If the care is provided for another person, such as a handicapped individual, then of course, the age requirement is disregarded. |
| In order to get a refund for the child and dependent care credit, you must have a tax liability. If you have no tax liability for California, you cannot get a refund because the child and dependent care expenses credit is a nonrefundable credit. Non refundable credits only cancel tax liability. Refundable credit are calculated at the end and it is refundable even if there is no tax liability and it is applied to the tax liability if there is any. |
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Refundable credits are treated the same ways as your payments either through withholding or through estimated payment which you make during the year. On the other hand, a nonrefundable credit is one that is cut off or cancelled at the amount of taxes owed. If your tax liability is only $159 and your child and dependent care expenses credit is $420, then you cannot get received more than $159 for this credit. Therefore, your child and dependent care expenses credit in this situation would be $159 and not the $420. This is true for both your federal and California tax returns. Let's assume in this case that your federal tax liability is $159 and your state liability is |
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| Revised: 07/09/15 |
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