www.chbforum.org

[Fern]

By federal law, you can arrange to have $5,000 of the dollars you would pay for childcare, being paid with pretax dollars instead of posttax dollars. This continues for the length of time that the child is in dependent care (i.e. childcare or daycare).

There are three ways to do this:

(1) If you use the $5,000 in federal pretax dollars on your own, you get reimbursed through your income tax return for the previous year, i.e. you have your child in 2008 and you can get your first annual $5,000 back from the federal government with the April 2009 tax return.

(2) If you do it through the Children's Hospital's set-aside plan ("Flexible Savings Account" or FSA), through Crosby Benefit Systems, you enroll for "Dependent Care Reimbursement" - internal link: http://chbelibrary.tch.harvard.edu/C4/hrben/default.aspx and do a search for "Dependent Care"

You can enroll during Open Enrollment in November or if you have a "Life-Changing Event," such as the birth of a child - internal link: http://web2.tch.harvard.edu/hr/life_changing_events/deciding_to_have_a_child.pdf

(3) If you do it through the Children's Hospital Child Care Center (CHCCC), you fill out a simple form that they give you and it is deducted automatically from your paycheck along with the cost of daycare (separated into pre- and post-tax dollars). The advantage of doing it this way, aside from saving you time, and getting you your money immediately, is that your actual income appears lower so that you are then eligible for discounts based on income through a "sliding scale," such as YMCA family membership, educational development programs for children, etc.