Preschool expenses for 4-year old that's not a dependent.

I don't see a deduction or credit here. If he is not your dependent, presumedly, he lives with his other parent. Therefore, you don't need to place him in school in order to work (or go to school yourself -- cf. "Child care credit") and therefore, there's no deduction for you.

Not enough information provided by the OP. It is quite possible to have a qualifying child who is not your dependent. The qualifying child if under age 13 would qualify you for the federal child and dependent care credit if you pay someone for day care in order to work. I see this all the time when the custodial parent releases the exemption to the noncustodial parent. The custodial parent retains all the tax benefits of having a qualifying child except for the dependency exemption and the Child Tax Credit.

In addition, this person asked about a form W10. That leads me to believe that the query may relate to some state tax return and not the federal return.

According to

say that the custodial parent can file form 8332 to release theexemption, and then the non-custodial parents gets to use exemption,child tax credit and additional child tax credit, tuition and feesdeduction for higher education. The custodial parent must still takehead of household filing status (or at least they can but they reallyshould if they can), dependent care credit, EITC. Your post suggeststhat the noncustodial parent can take the dependent care exemption. Additionally, many companies offer a daycare FSA. If the noncustodial parent funds their account with $5000 can they spend it on daycare for the child? It's kind of like the noncustodial parent taking a credit for the child.

There is a max limit of $5000 per FSA account. If the parents get divorced then they can each put $5000 in their account daycare account. Thus the child gets $10000 of pre-tax dollars in total, which seems unfair. Am I missing something?

Form W-10 is a federal form.

In addition, the higher education credits as well as the tuition and fees deduction do not require the taxpayer to have a qualifying child. They merely require you have a dependent for whom you actually claim the exemption.

The noncustodial parent could spend it on child care or Twinkies with the same result on the 1040. The $5,000 is going to wind up back in taxable income since there's no qualifying child receiving care. See Form 2441.

Phil Marti VITA/TCE Volunteer Clarksburg, MD

Agree, but due to what I suspect is a quirk, the noncustodial parnt skips paying FICA/Medicare tax on those FSA funds.