Course Description
This course was updated on 2/20/26.
Governments have historically used a “carrot and stick” approach to encouraging individuals and businesses to behave in ways it deems desirable: tax credits for acting as requested and tax penalties for failing to behave as required. The U.S. government similarly promotes multiple forms of socially-beneficial actions—adopting children, becoming employed, providing funds for dependents’ education, and other socially-desirable activities—by offering incentives in the form of tax credits for engaging in them. This course examines the various tax credits that may be claimed by individual taxpayers and explains how each tax credit works, its eligibility requirements, limitations, phase-outs, etc. and, for refundable tax credits, their due diligence requirements.
Of the 161,336,659 federal income tax returns received in 2023 (2022 income) by the IRS, 61,831,870 taxpayers—about 38%—claimed one or more federal income tax credits amounting to a total of $154.8 billion. For a tax preparer that prepares 150 to 200 tax returns in a season, the numbers indicate that he or she is likely to encounter between 55 and 75 returns claiming income tax credits that average approximately $2,500.
