Error on Wisconsin Schedule WI-2441

[cmoss25]

I have a client with $18,000 in dependent care expenses for their son. No dependent care benefit (DCB.) H earned income of $120,000 and W earned income of $80,000 and their AGI is over $200,000. The program calculates a $2,000 credit on the WI return. (max for one child of $10,000 x .2)

With the same set of facts but adding a DCB of $5,000, the credit is entirely eliminated. Since the DCB eliminates any additional credit on the federal 2441, the software does not calculate lines 3-9 (when line 29 is zero or less.) The WI-2441 instructions say to include the earned income amounts from the 2441, lines 4 & 5 on the WI-2441 lines 7 & 8. Since Proseries doesn't calculate lines 3-9, the earned income numbers are not on lines 4 & 5 for the WI calc to bring in. If I override lines 7&8 with the earned income, the credit calculates. Additionally, even when there is only $1 of DCB entered, this results in calculations on 2441 lines 3-9 and a federal credit of $600. However, the WI-2441 still doesn't bring in the lines 4 & 5 figures into WI-2441 lines 7&8. 

Anyone else experiencing this? (FYI, I'm working with Proseries support on this but thought I'd put this out there to alert others. Also called the WI Dept of Revenue to get more info beyond the instruction on how this credit works because the form seems to give the taxpayer credit based on $10,000 even when there is some amount of DCB involved... so tax breaks on the $10,000 as a credit AND the tax-free DCB amount. This also doesn't seem correct.) 

[cmoss25]

UPDATE:
Per conversation with the WI DOR (2/25/2025), it IS correct that someone with over $10,000 (1 child) or $20,000 (2 or more) in dependent care expenses can benefit from the tax-free FSA Dependent Care Benefit (DCB) amount of up to $5,000 AND the WI credits calculated on up to $10,000 or $20,000.

RE: ProSeries' and TurboTax' handling of the error their software is generating when there is one child and a DCB amount equal to or greater than $3,000... I may have more to say on this after further conversations with them. In the meantime, until they fix this, the workaround (at least on PS) is as follows:

Override the federal 2441, lines 4 & 5 with the figures on lines 18 & 19 respectively. This should cause the earned income to flow to WI-2441 lines 7 & 8 and will then properly calculate any additional credit the taxpayer is entitled to. You'll likely have to turn off "error-checking" in order to e-file the return. I haven't gotten that far yet. Planning to error-check it for everything else though, before disabling error-checking to e-file a return.

[s19concrete]

Yeah I am having the same exact problem on my return with a client where once you enter the DCB it completely stops information from flowing to the WI-2441 which is incorrect. As of right now ProSeries has not fixed it nor am I sure they're going to. I just spent two hours on the phone with a tech who was trying to be helpful but as we were getting to the point of submitting a ticket the line went dead. Hopefully they're working on it, the case # is 15132923829 

If they don't resolve this soon I will end up having to just override and hard key the information and likely end up having to paper file. This is not a small little error as it the difference of a $2,000 credit on the Wisconsin tax return.

[cmoss25]

ProSeries (and TurboTax) should be fixing this soon. They told me they won’t fix the problem until Wisconsin updates their instructions. I spoke with the WI DOR about the issue last week and they called me back yesterday (3/4/2025) with an update to say that they are putting out a notice and contacting the various software companies that are having an issue with this to give them the proper instructions. (Kudos to WI for the quick response and follow-up.)

Now we will wait and see how important Wisconsin users are to ProSeries to get this problem fixed expeditiously. You are correct, this is a big error and it should be s a simple software fix so it shouldn’t take very long. After more than six hours (and a couple of dropped calls) on the phone with ProSeries over this matter, I am very disappointed that they would not proactively reach out to get the correct information from WI once they were made aware of the problem by multiple practitioners and also by taxpayers using TurboTax. And you shouldn’t have had to spend 2 hours on the phone repeating the same information that they already had. I don’t know why they don’t have an accurate database of known issues, both internally and also accessible to users of the software.

[s19concrete]

Update 3-7-25. I checked today and the software has been updated and the WI-2441 is now flowing through properly even when you add the dependent care credit! All systems are go. Though, I do pity any Wisconsinite who had dependent care credits and used to TurboTax to file their taxes already