Key Takeaways. The Child Tax Credit is up to $2,000. The Credit for Other Dependents is worth up to $500. The IRS defines a dependent as a qualifying child (under age 19 or under 24 if a full-time student, or any age if permanently and totally disabled) or a qualifying relative.
Each dependency exemption you claim reduces your taxable income by $5,050.
Tax credit per child for 2024
The maximum tax credit per qualifying child is $2,000 for children under 17. For the refundable portion of the credit (or the additional child tax credit), you may receive up to $1,700 per qualifying child.
Child Tax Credit (partially refundable)
For 2024, the credit is up to $2,000 per qualifying child. To qualify, a child must: Have a Social Security number. Be under age 17 at the end of 2024.
If you're a dependent on someone else's return
You may want to file anyway so you can get any federal income tax your employer withheld back as a refund or claim certain refundable tax credits.
Tax year 2025
No qualifying children: $649. 1 qualifying child: $4,328. 2 qualifying children: $7,152. 3 or more qualifying children: $8,046.
How do I get a 10,000 tax refund? You could end up with a $10,000 tax refund if you've paid significantly more tax payments than you owe at the end of the year.
Good Reasons
If your income disqualifies you from claiming these credits, your child's income probably doesn't disqualify him or her. Therefore, your child may be able to report payment of education expenses for tax purposes and then claim one of the credits – but only if you don't claim him or her as a dependent.
Child Tax Credit
For the 2024 tax year (taxes filed in 2025), the credit is worth up to $2,000 per qualifying child. Of this amount, up to $1,700 is refundable, which means you could receive a refund even if you don't owe any taxes.
Individual filers with children who are eligible may be able to claim them as dependents as well. Claiming 1 on your tax return reduces withholdings with each paycheck, which means you make more money on a week-to-week basis.
The IRS generally issues refunds within 21 days of when you electronically filed your tax return, and longer for paper returns.
The maximum credit amount is $500 for each qualifying person. The credit begins to decrease in value if your adjusted gross income exceeds $200,000 ($400,000 for married filing jointly).
Child tax credit 2024
For 2024 (taxes filed in 2025), the child tax credit is worth up to $2,000 per qualifying dependent child.
A person cannot be claimed as a dependent unless that person is a U.S. citizen, U.S. resident alien, U.S. national, or a resident of Canada or Mexico, for some part of the year. (There is an exception for certain adopted children.) A dependent must be either a qualifying child or qualifying relative.
To meet the qualifying child test, your child must be younger than you or your spouse if filing jointly and either younger than 19 years old or be a "student" younger than 24 years old as of the end of the calendar year.
The more dependents a taxpayer claims on their W-4 form, the less tax will be withheld from their paychecks, and the higher their paychecks will be. Claiming fewer allowances on their W-4 form will result in more tax being withheld from their paychecks and a lowered income with each payment.
If you both try to claim the same child, the child will be treated as the dependent of: The parent with whom the child lived the longest amount of time during the year, or. The parent with the higher AGI if the child lived with both of you the same amount of time.
Married filing jointly is the most common filing status for married couples. This status has the highest standard deduction and some of the most beneficial tax rate brackets. You file together and report combined income, along with your combined deductions and qualifying credits on the same return.
By placing a “0” on line 5, you are indicating that you want the most amount of tax taken out of your pay each pay period. If you wish to claim 1 for yourself instead, then less tax is taken out of your pay each pay period.
This would allow families with low incomes to receive more of the credit than they were able to previously. This provision increases the maximum refundable amount per child to $1,800 in tax year 2023, $1,900 in tax year 2024, and $2,000 in tax year 2025. This is in addition to the inflation adjustment described below.
You can't claim the EIC unless your investment income is $11,600 or less. If your investment income is more than $11,600, you can't claim the credit. Use Worksheet 1 in this chapter to figure your investment income.
It is important to note that even if a taxpayer has no income, they must still file a tax return if they have a dependent and wish to claim tax credits. Failure to do so could result in a loss of benefits.