Help I am confused

Hopefully someone will correct me if I'm wrong. We haven't adopted yet so I don't have the experience, just have done some research. You can spread the tax credit out over 5 years. So if your tax liability is $7800 (or whatever less than $10,360 or whatever the credit is) the first year you can get the remainder of the tax credit the next year. Hope this helps! Good luck :) Kelly

kelly 641 is right. As long as you have some tax liability after your regular deductions are taken, you will benefit at least somewhat from the adoption tax credit. For instance, using simple numbers, lets assume your tax liability is $2,000. That means you get to use $2,000 of the $10,000 tax credit that year - that reduces your tax liability to $0 and you keep $8,000 available to use the next year. That next year assume your tax liability is $3,000. That means you get to use $3,000 or your remaining $8,000 tax credit that year - that reduces your tax liability to $0 and you keep $5,000 to use the next year. Etc. So you see, as long as you have at least $1 of tax liability, the adoption tax credit can be used. Obviously, the higher your tax liabililty, the MORE use you'll get out of the adoption tax credit! (There are people whose tax liability is so low that they won't be able to use the entire $10,000 or the credit, for example, even if they stretch it out over the entire number of years allowed.) But as long as you have some liability, it's useful. Hope that helps!