Does federal flag for age, or is that up to the preparer to notice and disallow the care credit?

The program uses the input for DOB to first determine whether the dependent is 13 or above at the beginning of the year.  It then depends on the preparer to enter the qualified expenses, based on the preparer's judgement of what is eligible - in other words, so long as the child is below 13 at the beginning of the year, whatever the preparer enter as qualified expenses would be used to compute the credit.

PS allows you to enter dependent care for 13+ aged kids because there's an exception for special needs kids. If you run the diagnostics you'll get a (yellow) cautionary statement (that no one ever bothers to read).... just cause PS lets you give the credit doesn't mean the kid is eligible. I think the NY software says no based on age.... there may or may not be an box to check for special needs... I don't remember.

@Skylane - What me worry?

:+1: