Dependent 24,000.00 scholarship and had 10,600 in box 1 1098 T. Used remainder for room/ board. Purchased laptop required for school for $1500. AOC credit?

[Vanessa A]

Yes.  You can still claim the AOTC for your dependent even with the scholarship greater than the tuition and required laptop. See the instructions on how to do so by Hal Al of how to do so in this link.

[Hal_Al]

 Q. Can I claim the  AOC credit?

A. Yes.

There is a tax “loop hole” available to claim an education credit, for the parents of students on scholarship. The student reports all his scholarship, up to the amount needed to claim the American Opportunity Credit (AOC), as income on his return. That way, the parents  (or himself, if he is not a dependent) can claim the tuition credit on their return. They can do this because that much tuition was no longer paid by "tax free" scholarship.  You cannot do this  if the conditions of the grant are that it be used to pay for qualified expenses.

Using your numbers for an example: Student has $24,000 in box 5 of the 1098-T and $10,600 in box 1. At first glance he/she has $13,400 of taxable income and nobody can claim the American opportunity credit. But if she reports $17,400 as income on her return, the parents can claim $4000 of qualified expenses on their return.

Books and computers are also qualifying expenses for the AOC. So, extending the example, the student had another $1500 in expenses for those course materials, paid out of pocket. She would only need to report $15,900 of taxable scholarship income, instead of $17,400.

The IRS actually encourages use of this technique. From the form 1040 instructions: “You may be able to increase an education credit if the student chooses to include all or part of a Pell grant or certain other scholarships or fellowships in income. For more information, see Pub. 970, the instructions for Form 1040 and IRS.gov/EdCredit".  PUB 970 even has examples of how to do the “loop hole”.

[Hal_Al]

You can both use the 1098-T to make your entries. If you claim the tuition credit, you do need to report that you got one (the TurboTax interview will handle this) Your student should use the 1098-T because it makes entering scholarship income go smoother and puts the income in the right place on the tax forms, line 8r of Schedule 1 (this is a new location starting in 2022).

TurboTax can theoretically handle all that when you follow the interview carefully. But, it goes smoother if you use a work around in TurboTax (TT). Here's how I would do it. Enter the 1098-T, on your return, but only enter $4000 in box 1. No other numbers. You only enter the 1098-T to get TurboTax to check the proper box on form 8863. Lying to TurboTax to get it to do what you want does not constitute lying to the IRS. The 1098-T that you enter in TT is not sent to the IRS.

Enter the 1098-T, exactly as received, on the student's return. Enter book and computer expenses separately.  In his interview, you should eventually reach a screen called "Amount used to calculate education credit" (or similar wording).  Be sure the amount in that box is $4000. You must complete the “education information” subsection to get that screen, This will put all his excess scholarship as income on his return (line 8r of Schedule 1).

Be advised some people are saying they're not getting the "Amount used to claim the tuition credit" (or “Education Expenses used for a Tax Credit”) screen on the dependent’s interview.  Check the student information work sheet (part VI, line 17) to verify it was entered.  If not, the alternate workaround is  to enter $4000 less than the actual box 1  amount, when you enter the 1098-T.

There's yet another (and simplest) work around. Manually calculate the taxable amount of scholarship and enter the 1098-T, on his return, with 0 in box 1 and the  taxable amount ($15,900* in your case)  in box 5. In that case the amount in the  "Amount used to claim the tuition  credit" box is 0 (if it comes up).

Before doing that, it may be helpful to first delete the previously entered 1098-T and start over, so that there's not conflicting data still hanging around.

*24,000 - 10,600 -1500 +4000 = 15,900