Please tell me what I am doing wrong: daughter meets criteria to be claimed as dependent and to qualify us for the American Opportunity Credit, and her dad and I (filing married) meet criteria to claim credit. She works and goes to full time. AGI is 14855. Taxable income 2245 according to TT.
Attended two colleges full time in 2021:
UF: 1098T box 1is 2299.50. (NOTE: they do not include $303 dollars here which were for mandatory health and transportation fees)
Box 5 2852.52 (this does include the $303 referenced above as well as $250 refund from Bright Futures for who knows what)
USF: 1098 T Box 1 4224.87
Box 5 1895.21 (which was all bright futures money. She paid the rest of box 1 with $1053.72 which was from FL Prepaid, and a personal check for 1275.94)
She also had $84 qualified education expenses for books.
When I did her taxes in turbo tax, the education information section under the education summary brought me to a screen entitled "education expenses used for a tax credit." There was a line at the bottom that said: amount used to calculate education credit and TT had filled 1861 in that box. Information above that box tells my daughter that her total qualified education expenses are $6,609. TT goes on to say: "These expenses make your distribution of educational funds nontaxable. However, if the person who claimed you as a dependent also used some or all of these expenses to claim an education tax credit, we need to know what amount was used for a credit because it might make part of the distribution taxable. For example, if the person who claimed you as a dependent also claimed the American Opportunity Credit for these expenses (which applies to the first $4000 of education expenses), you would enter $4000 below." I changed that number to $4000 and it changed absolutely nothing on her form. There was no scholarship added as income. Nothing. The only thing I did notice is that her FL prepaid was changed to taxable income of 163.
Moving on to my own income tax form, I entered everything expecting a $4000 American Opportunity Credit, but TT is only giving me a credit of $1861, which is the same amount it had filled in the box on her form before I changed the number to $4000.
Should I be able to claim the entire $4000? What am I entering incorrectly?
posted
April 11, 20226:30 PM
last updatedApril 11, 20226:30 PM
