Nanny costs and taxes

[Anonymous]

We hired a nanny this year. We pay her through Breedlove, and we use a dependent care account at work for the $5k max.

Are we able to deduct any other nanny-related costs when we file our own taxes next year? I read an article that said, in a passing reference, that we can deduct our Breedlove fees. Is that true? What about the portion of the payroll taxes that we pay? It seems unfair that we'd be taxed again on that! Any other tips would be great.

[Anonymous]

It is my understanding that you can take Dependent Care tax credit based on max $3000 in care expenses if you have one kid or max $6000 if you have 2+ kids, but anything from the dependent care spending account will reduce the maximum amount. So, if you have 1 kid, and put $5000 in dependent care spending account, this credit will be $0. If you have 2 kids, it usually amounts to $6,000-$5000 = $1,000 deduction, or $200 tax credit.

Breedlove fees should be considered tax preparation fees, so they could be included in Miscellaneous deductions. However, you can only claim the amount of Miscellaneous expenses that is more than 2% of your adjusted gross income. So, unless you have other big items to include in Miscellaneous deductions that puts that category above 2% of your AGI, you can't deduct them.

You can not separately deduct payroll taxes that you pay on the nanny's wages. You might think about it as double taxing, but so would be true of anything we buy. For example, you go get a hair cut, and pay $50. Now you actually had to earn a bit more than $50 because of taxes, and your employer also paid their portion of payroll taxes. But guess what? The hair cuttery will have to pay all the taxes one more time before giving the salary to the hairdresser, and then the hairdresser will pay tax again on the portion of $50 that she gets as a salary.

Well, death and taxes are the only two things certain in life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is my understanding that you can take Dependent Care tax credit based on max $3000 in care expenses if you have one kid or max $6000 if you have 2+ kids, but anything from the dependent care spending account will reduce the maximum amount. So, if you have 1 kid, and put $5000 in dependent care spending account, this credit will be $0. If you have 2 kids, it usually amounts to $6,000-$5000 = $1,000 deduction, or $200 tax credit.

Breedlove fees should be considered tax preparation fees, so they could be included in Miscellaneous deductions. However, you can only claim the amount of Miscellaneous expenses that is more than 2% of your adjusted gross income. So, unless you have other big items to include in Miscellaneous deductions that puts that category above 2% of your AGI, you can't deduct them.

You can not separately deduct payroll taxes that you pay on the nanny's wages. You might think about it as double taxing, but so would be true of anything we buy. For example, you go get a hair cut, and pay $50. Now you actually had to earn a bit more than $50 because of taxes, and your employer also paid their portion of payroll taxes. But guess what? The hair cuttery will have to pay all the taxes one more time before giving the salary to the hairdresser, and then the hairdresser will pay tax again on the portion of $50 that she gets as a salary.

Well, death and taxes are the only two things certain in life.

SO basically 100% of all money eventually ends up in the governments hand?