Can my 23 yo son use an education deduction?

If you disclaim the exemption, your dependent child would be eligible for a higher education tax benefit. Your dependent could claim the Lifetime Learning Credit based on qualified expenses that either you or he paid. Any qualified expenses paid by someone else directly to the school would count as expenses paid by him. He can not claim his own personal exemption on his tax return. If he was not a full time student, he would not be subject to the Kiddie Tax.

If I don't claim his as a dependent, my Federal tax goes up $1,500 and my NY tax goes up $1,000 because I lose an exemption and can't claim his medical expenses as deductions. His Federal tax goes down $2,540 due to getting the lifetime education credit (not sure what the $40 is) and his NY tax stays the same. So there is not much point to this.

BUT............. If he is not a full time student, then he doesn't have to pay Kiddie tax and his Federal tax goes down $6,500, making us $4,000 to the good!

His 1098T says he is "at least half-time student". So, I would like to say he is JUST a half-time student, but really don't want to commit tax fraud. How do I go about determining if I can make this claim?

Googling doesn't much help; as I think people TRY to claim full time to get the exemption.

Thanks much.

The school determines what constitutes full time. Ask the registrar's office if he was considered full time?

Bob Sandler

School says he is full time, so that doesn't work. He has lived in our house less than 30 days. Most of the time he had an apartment while in graduate school, or a dorm while a college student. Anything to hang my hat on there? I know I CAN say that his time living away for education is an exception, but I don't see that I am REQUIRED to call it an exception.

You and he must determine where he is domiciled (his one true home). If he moved his domicile to where he resides near school, he is no longer temporarily away from home. If he has a car, where is it registered? Where is he registered to vote and where does he vote? The fact that he may only spend less than 30 days in your home, does not mean that his domicile changed. If he filed a tax return last year, what address did he use and if he is going to school out of state, which state on his tax return did he say he was a resident of? etc. etc.

Yeah, I don't think there is anyway to make this work. I should have given more thought to it a year ago and had him change his domicile to his apartment. He will age out for 2017. I appreciate everyone's help.