I thought it would do it automatically but at the end of my refund it says Total Nova Scotia Non-Refundable credits is 1430 but I had 2 children under 6 years of age for the 2023 tax year and it's supposed to be $100/month of the year that they are under 6.
Are you using TurboTax CD/Download or TurboTax Online?
Turbo Tax Online. To help me understand more - does the 1200/year per child come off your gross income in return reducing your taxable income?
No, it would come off your Taxable Income, which is calculated after Net Income.
Non-refundable tax credits can be used to reduce the tax that you paid or may have to pay. It can’t be used to generate or increase a refund. So, you will only get the amount that you would need to reduce you tax payable to zero.
I paid in approximately 10,000 in income tax last year because I was on maternity leave until June. I had 2 children under the age of 6 and 1 older. Would that $100/ month per child under 6 reduce the 10,000 to 7600 in payable income tax?
Yes.
$100 x 12 months = $1200
For 2 children it would be $2400.
$10000 - $2400 = $7600
Alright. I went back and looked at previous years and turbo tax didn't calculate it like that. It showed on my assessment of my NS428 form where 2400 was claimed but then when calculated it ended up being 1430 or something along those lines.
You might have gotten less because if didn't have both children for all 12 months of the year.
Married but I assumed because I'm the lower income parent that it would be on mine. Children were 1,4 and 6 at the time. Is this something I should look into from previous years? I just assumed I wasn't able to use it all for some odd reason. I looked at 2021 & 2022 assessments and both are similar. I'm a Healthcare professional - little knowledge of income tax lol.
It never hurts to double check.
You can open your 2021 & 2022 returns by going to the links for those years:
https://ww1.2021.ca.turbotaxonline.intuit.com/signin?_swlg=en
https://ww1.2022.ca.turbotaxonline.intuit.com/signin?_swlg=en