The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed a bipartisan deal to expand the child tax credit. Though it still has to pass the Senate to be enacted, and has somewhat slim chances, it’s a step in a direction that millions of taxpaying parents need, especially low-income families.

Like many seeing this announcement, I wondered how the new rules would impact my family. I realized that I didn’t actually understand what the child tax credit is or how it really works. It’s much more complex than what the name suggests. Then, I began to question how the other child and dependent care tax credits work. What about my employer-based dependent care flexible spending account?

Upon researching the various child tax benefits, I came away with an even bigger question. How does the average working family understand this stuff? How is claiming the child tax credit different from the additional child tax credit? Where does the earned income tax credit — with or without children — fit in? What about the child and dependent care tax credit versus the other dependent care credit? Let’s not forget about my dependent care flexible spending account. 

Can you claim all of these on your tax return? If you do, is that tax fraud?

Tax season is here and the answers to these questions could mean thousands of dollars for parents and family members with caregiving responsibilities. They could even be the difference between owing money, having zero tax liability or getting a refund.

Understanding how to claim these benefits is crucial to me, a single parent. I’m a researcher and a teacher and I consider myself to be pretty good at figuring things out. What I’ve learned so far is that tax credits for children and other dependents are a mess to try to weed through. It was clear that before I could figure out how to link the credits, I had to understand how each one worked on its own. And that’s no small feat.

Through a combination of news stories, blogs and the IRS website, I finally started to make some sense of the credits — what they are, what they are used for and who can claim them. I used the IRS’ Interactive Tax Assistant tool for several of the credits just to see what would happen.

After hours of research, I eventually came across a page called, intuitively, Child Tax Credit 3. Finally, I had my answer: “Yes, you may claim the child tax credit (CTC)/additional child tax credit (ACTC) or credit for other dependents (ODC) as well as the child and dependent care credit on your return, if you qualify for those credits.”

One would think that this information would have been front and center when I first began searching the IRS website. No. I was hours and hours into reading before I happened to do a Google search for more information about the additional child tax credit and this particular IRS webpage showed up in the results, in fourth place.

According to Childcare Aware of America, the national average cost for child care in 2022 was $10,853 annually. That’s for one child; I have two. And Nevada is one of the most expensive states for child care. The average cost for an infant in 2022 in Nevada was $13,383, with Clark County averaging around $17,000. Coming out of the pandemic, those prices have only increased.

Knowing how to access the tax credits that can help to offset child care expenses is a must. And, without a better way to communicate to the public how to use these benefits, needed money is being left on the table. There has to be a better way for the IRS to organize information about the various child and dependent care benefits. We need a public service announcement campaign or a mailer with a chart clearly laying out the facts. Given all the random junk we find in our mailboxes, that would be a welcome one.

Tanya Robertson is an assistant professor at UNLV and a licensed foster parent for Clark County.

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