LawChangeCHILDCARECREDIT.h

There are 2 types of child care credit proposals handled by this class. The first type provides an earnings credit for anybody that has an eligible child in care. To be eligible, the child must be under a specified age (see getMaxAge). The amount of the credit is equal to a specified percentage (see getFqRatio) of the wage base in the year of the credit. The number of years that the person is eligible for the credit is specifed (see getMaxYears), and the creditable years are determined such that the person's PIA will be maximized (i.e., not just taking the first years in which the person is elgible for the credit.) Although the proposal starts in a specified year, the historical earnings (before that start year) used for the person's PIA calculation may or may not have credits applied. This is specified by getChildCareYearsBeforeEffYear. 

The second type of child care credit proposal handled by this class also provides earnings credits to those who have an eligible child in care. But these credits are based on the person earnings history up to the point of the potential credit. The person uses the his/her top years of earnings. The number of these years is specified (see getNumTopEarnYears). After finding this group of top years of earnings, some extreme years (the years with the highest and lowest of earnings) are dropped out of this group. The number of extreme years is specified (see getNumDropExtremeEarnYears). For example, dropping 2 extreme years means to drop the 2 highest and 2 lowest years of earnings. The remaining years of earnings in the selected group are averaged together and a specified percentage of that average (see getAvgEarnPct) is used as the credit amount. The other parameters are the same as the first version of the child care credit proposal, except that getFqRatio is not used. 

One additional note is that for both versions of the proposal, the credit given is not added on to any earnings that the person already has in that year. It is the total amount of earnings the person is credited in that year. For example, if a person has $10,000 of earnings in the year, and the credit amount is calculated to be $15,000, then the new amount of earnings for that person in that year is $15,000 (i.e., $5,000 on top of his/her regular earnings for that year).

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