What is a Dependent Day Care Flexible Spending Account?

The Dependent Day Care FSA lets you set aside before-tax money to use for eligible dependent day care and elder care expenses. The Dependent Day Care FSA is administered by UnitedHealthcare (UHC).

There are a few rules related to Dependent Day Care FSAs:

• The expenses must be necessary because you (and your spouse, if married) work, are looking for work, or attend school full-time. If you’re single or divorced, expenses must be necessary so you can work even if you don’t claim your child(ren) as dependents on your federal income tax return. See IRS Publication 503 for details.
• You can’t reimburse expenses of a domestic partner to provide care for a dependent.
• You can’t transfer funds from your DDCFSA to a Health Care FSA (HCFSA) or a Limited Purpose FSA (LPFSA) or vice versa.
• If you use the funds for child-care expenses, you can’t use the same expenses to claim the child tax credit.

Who’s Eligible

All employees, even those who are not enrolled in any other Firm benefits, may contribute to a Dependent Day Care FSA.

Eligible Expenses

You can use Dependent Day Care FSA funds to pay for the following:

• Typically, for day care for children under age 13. This includes tuition for pre-school, day camp, or before- and after-school programs for children. For 2021 only, you may use funds that carry over from 2020 for eligible expenses incurred by children under 14 in 2021.
• Day care or home care for tax-dependent adults who are incapable of self-care, such as disabled children or elderly dependent parents, as described in Internal Revenue Code section 152(c).

How It Works

Contribute

Choose your contribution amount when you enroll.

You can contribute between $100 and $5,000 annually to the Dependent Day Care FSA if you are single or married and file a joint tax return, if applicable. (Lower limits may apply in certain circumstances.) If you are married and file separate tax returns, you may contribute between $100 and $2,500 annually.

For 2021, the contribution limit increased to $10,500 (up from $5,000) for single taxpayers and married couples filing joint tax returns – and to $5,250 (up from $2,500) for married individuals filing separately. At this time, it is unclear whether the increased limit will remain or revert to the original limit.

Pay

You have two options to pay for your child or elder care expenses:

• If the funds are available in your Dependent Day Care FSA to cover the expense, you can use your FSA debit card. Note: Funds are available as they are deducted from your paycheck through the year.
• You can submit claims online at myuhc.com. Claims are processed in 3-7 days or less, which can mean faster reimbursement. You can even submit multiple expenses and receipts for different family members at once.

Note: Not all expenses are eligible for reimbursement from your Dependent Day Care FSA. For example, child care expenses are covered but not tutoring or field trip expenses. And don’t forget to keep all receipts for child and elder care expenses.

Submit claims to UHC, the Dependent Day Care FSA administrator, by completing an FSA claim form (available on myuhc.com or the Benefit Center website) and including your receipts and the provider’s tax ID number.

Spend

You can use your DDCFSA for eligible expenses incurred by December 31, 2023. You have until April 30, 2024, to submit claims for reimbursement for expenses incurred in 2023.

Roll Over

Any unused 2022 Dependent Day Care FSA funds will not roll over into 2023 and will be forfeited.

Questions about your FSA? Call UnitedHealthcare^® at 1-888-332-8891, TTY 711.