Your children can be helpful at tax time those charming children may help you qualify for some valuable tax benefits. Here are 11 Tax Benefits that you may qualify for

1. Dependents In most cases, a child can be claimed as a dependent in the year they were born.

2. Child Tax Credit If your are claiming your child(ren) as dependent(s) and they are under age 17 on 31 Dec you can get additional $1,000.00 per child

3. Child and Dependent Care Credit If your child is under age of 13 and you pay someone to care for your child(ren) you can get 20% to 25% up to $3,000.00 refund back to you.

4. Earned Income Tax Credit If your child(ren) live with you for at least six months of the year and your total income is less than $49,800.00 you may be eligible for EITC that can be over $5,700.00.  You can get this tax credit even if you don’t claim the child as a dependent.

5. Adoption Credit $13,000.00 is the amount of credit you can receive.  If you adopted a special needs child or went through a normal adoption process.

 6. Children with earned income If your child has income earned from working, they may be required to file a tax return.  Very Important, make sure your child indicate on their tax return that their parent(s) is claiming them.

7. Children with investment income If your child has total investment income over $1,200.00 they must file tax forms, which in some cases may be additional income on your tax return.

 8. Higher education credits If you have a child in college you will probably want to claim that child to take full advantage of the $2,500.00 College Tax Credit.  American Opportunity and the Lifetime Learning Credits are education credits are two great tax credits.

9. Student loan interest You get to write off the interest paid on a qualified student loan, even if you do not itemize.

10. Self-employed health insurance deduction If you were self-employed and paid for health insurance, you may be able to deduct any premiums you paid for coverage for any child of yours who was under age 27 at the end of the year, even if the child was not your dependent.

11. Indiana 529 College Fund:  The State of Indiana will give you a 20% state tax credit up to $1,000.00 for funds put into a college fund for your child, grandchild, niece, nephew, stepchild.