The married filing couple I am referring to earned a total of $191,835 joint with no deductions coming off of that and they would get the $2000 per child tax credit per kid filing joint. ($4000) The phase out for 2020  based on modified AGI is $400,000 for filing joint and $200,000 for filing married separate. One parent makes $99,649 total income and the other $92,186 neither one of the two have any deductions student loan interest etc to deduct. That is their income, minus a $300 charitable deduction for married filing joint or a $150 deduction each for filing married separate. So first I am confused as to where you came up with the 2021 numbers, since this is for 2020. Filing separate and each taking one child as their dependent, should not affect the child tax credit of $2000 they would each get for each one of the two of their kids on their tax return correct? Please tell me if this is correct and then I will tell you why I am doing it this way.