American Opportunity Tax Credit

[Tex78]

I don't want to take the American Opportunity Credit this year since I'm only getting a partial credit.  I'll be better off saving it for next year since my income will be lower and you can only claim it 4 years total.  How can I prevent Turbo Tax from automatically applying the credit to this year's return.  It doesn't let me override it. 

[PaulaM]

You can skip a year as long as you have not yet earned a 4 year degree. If you don't want to take the credit, then you would not enter any education expenses in the section. If you have already enter the form, delete it and the Form 8863.

[Tex78]

Hi, I should probably have mentioned I though about not entering any education expenses, but I withdrew some of the funds from a 529, so I think I need to enter expenses, or it will want to apply taxes to the 529 withdrawal.  I also tried deleting the 8863 forms, but it didn't appear to do anything on my refund.  I also tried entering Zero in the cell for how much of the expenses to apply towards the credit.  However, whenever I hit the optimize button it applies the partial credit anyway.  I don't see a way to make it move on to the next page without hitting the optimize button.

[PaulaM]

Can you apply all of your expenses to the 529 withdrawal and not leave any excess? If no leftover expenses, then there won't be anything to apply towards the credit.

Enter your 1099-Q first, then go to the Education section to enter your expenses exactly in the amount of your 1099-Q distribution.