"it means for any reason you may claim sick leave equivalent credits?"

There is Sick Pay and there is Family Leave Pay. You don't get both for the same events or dates, though. Maybe it would help to review the basis of these provisions. This is meant as a simplified overview. To read in more detail, go to the IRS resources and read what applies to that specific taxpayer, such as:

https://www.irs.gov/instructions/i7202#en_US_2021_publink100085618

https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/tax-credits-for-paid-leave-under-the-american-rescue-plan-act-of-2021-f...

https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/tax-credits-for-paid-leave-under-the-american-rescue-plan-act-of-2021-s...

No one here can answer every matrix of what applies. Even the IRS FAQ is over 100 Q&A at this point.

Employees had provisions for sick pay (for when they are the sick one) or for family leave (when someone in the family is sick or the restrictions caused them to need to be away from work to care for a dependent). The next thing to know is the word "parity" and that means, providing a matching, similar or equivalent, provision to self-employed individuals (not self-employer).

When you work with your clients, you are going to examine their data two ways:

1. Were you the one who was sick (or quarantined, or whatever qualifies) and this prevented you from being able to run your business activity (as a self-employed individual)?

2. Were you unable to run your business because family issues impacted your ability to run your business activity (child was sick, school or daycare was closed)?

That's why you see there are multiple parts to the form, and that's why you can't double-dip if things overlap (can't use specific dates for both types of qualifying events) and 3) that's why you might see a W2 that included FMLA or sick pay, which needed to be taken into account for an Employee (W2) who also runs a sole proprietorship (self-employed) and might run into that similar conflict of having either type of leave available in both scenarios (no overlap, no double-dipping allowed).

This is all about, "Were you available to do your business, or were you prevented from doing that business by one of the qualifying scenarios for dates that fall under the provisions, and did you also have a regular employer job that we need to also take into consideration, for the days and events we are trying to determine if they qualify or not?"