Table of Contents
Overview
The Child-Care Benefit is available to Reliant field workers and employees who need or wish to provide child care for a dependent. Any Reliant employee may elect this benefit (it doesn't matter how many hours you are employed per week by Reliant), as long as the child care costs the employee is incurring and seeking to reimburse from the plan are related to the employee and his/her spouse working (or seeking employment). This benefit is part of Reliant's Cafeteria Plan, which allows pre-tax wages to be used for certain benefits. Some of the IRS requirements to utilize the Child-Care benefit include:
- The person receiving care is a dependent in your home.
- If both parents live in the home, both parents are working or actively seeking work.
- Child care is provided in manners compliant to IRS requirements.
- See exclusions listed below in FAQ's: "What type of child care is not eligible for reimbursement?"
- Maximum reimbursement allowed is:
- $5,000 annually per household, if you are married and filing jointly or single, filing head of household.
- $2,500 annually per employee, if you are married and filing separately.
Maximum reimbursement cannot exceed either parents individual income.
How Do I Utilize This Benefit?
In order to take part in the benefit, you must enroll in the benefit annually during Open Enrollment or at the time of a qualifying event. If you miss Open Enrollment, you may submit a Cafeteria Form by December 20 to affect the following year. These qualifying events include birth, adoption or foster placement, the return to work of either parents or a significant change in income.
When the Child-Care Benefit is chosen, you select an amount to be deducted from your pre-tax earnings each paycheck for the entire year.
- The funds will be held in a special account for you at Reliant.
- You may then submit your child-care receipts on the child-care reimbursement form found on Solomon.
- The reimbursement you submit will be eligible for payment up to the balance that has been reserved from your paycheck at the time of the reimbursement request, or will be held until sufficient funds have been withheld from your pay. We are unable to partially pay (split payment into multiple months).
- Child-Care Benefit funds can not be rolled forward to next year. Excess funds are distributed among all participants, so plan your deduction accordingly.
- IRS form 2441 must be filed with your tax return for any tax year that you utilize this benefit.
If you desire to elect the Child-Care Benefit, you will need to enroll using the form linked to below to sign up for your Child-Care Benefit employee contribution.
How Does This Benefit Help Me?
How Long Does My Election of This Benefit Last?
You may not make any changes to your contribution until the next open-enrollment period. This contribution remains in effect even if your employment becomes benefits ineligible. However, a change in employment or income affecting you or your spouse is a qualifying event. If there is a change, you must reach out to payroll@reliant.org to seek a change to your contribution.
Excess contributions not used for this year's child-care reimbursements will be distributed to all participants in the child-care plan based on % of contribution. Your unused contributions will not be returned individually to you, so set your contribution modestly.
FAQ
Full Dependent Care Policy
Enrollment Form
- Cafeteria Plan Enrollment Form should be used during the year for qualifying events and by newly hired employees (within 30 days of their hire date).
Reimbursement instructions for monthly child-care expenses
Monthly Instructions
Please fill out your reimbursement forms and submit them to reimbursements@reliant.org on a monthly basis. If you have multiple service providers in a given month, please fill out one reimbursement form for the entire month for each provider and attach all receipts for the amounts paid to that provider within the month. For example, if you have two babysitters that you paid weekly, you can either create one receipt for all the weekly payments for each babysitter to sign (so you create a monthly summary receipt for the babysitters to sign) or attach a receipt for each weekly amount paid to the babysitters within the month. Then you would fill out one reimbursement form for each babysitter for the month.
Reimbursement form
- The top portion of the form: Name, FD#, address, etc.
- Amount of reimbursement: enter the full amount of the child care paid for dates of service
- Dates of service: Enter starting and ending dates
- Type of Service Provider: Select either Individual or Business
- Service Provider Name: Name of individual or business providing the child care
- Service Provider Address/Phone
- Service Provider Employer ID: If you selected "Business" as the type of provider, this will be the business employer ID #
- Check the boxes that apply (per instructions on the form)
- Use the Receipt tab to include a scan or photo of your child-care expense receipt
- Share the form with reimbursements@reliant.org (using your reliant.org email address). If you haven't added the receipt to the Receipt tab, email the scan(s) as attachments to reimbursements@reliant.org.