Qualifying Dependent - full time student

[Paulasj]

Can I still claim my 18 year old, full time college student if he earns over $14,000 per year and will live on campus more than he is at home?  I am paying for college tuition, fees, books, and housing.

[Texas Roger]

Temporary absences while away at college are considered living at home. There is no income limit for an 18 year old full time student as long as the student doesn't provide more than half of his own support for the year with the income. 

Here are the detailed requirements to claim a qualifying child dependent:

1. The child must be your son, daughter, stepchild, foster chld, brother, sister, half brother, half sister, stepbrother, stepsister, or a descendant of any of them.
2. The child must be (a) under age 19 at the end of the year, (b) under age 24 at the end of the year and a full-time student, or (c) any age and permanently and totally disabled.
3. The child must have lived with you for more than half of the year. Temporary absences while away at college are considered living with you.
4. The child must not have provided more than half of his or her own support for the year.
5. If the child meets the rules to be a qualifying child of more than one person, you must be the person entitled to claim the child as a qualifying child.
6. The child must be a U.S. citizen or U.S., Canada or Mexico resident for some portion of the year.
7. The child must be younger than you (or your spouse, if filing jointly) unless disabled.

[Hal_Al]

Q. Can I still claim my 18 year old, full time college student if he earns over $14,000 per year and will live on campus more than he is at home? 

A. Yes.

There are two types of dependents, "Qualifying Children"(QC) and standard ("Qualifying Relative" in IRS parlance even though they don't have to actually be related). There is no income limit for a QC but there is an age limit, student status, a relationship test and residence test. Only a QC qualifies a taxpayer for the Earned Income Credit .They are interrelated but the rules are different for each.

The support test is different for each type. The support test, for a QC, is only that the child didn't provide more than half his own support. The support test for a Qualifying Relative is that the taxpayer provided more than half the relative's support.

So, it doesn't matter how much he earned. What matters is how much he spent on support. Money he put into savings does not count as support he spent on him self.

The support value of the home, provided by the parent, is the fair market rental value of the home plus utilities & other expenses divided by the number of occupants.

Furthermore, there is a rule that says IF somebody else CAN claim him as a dependent, he is not allowed to claim himself. If he has sufficient income (usually more than $12,200), he can & should still file taxes. In TurboTax, he indicates that somebody else can claim him as a dependent, at the personal information section.  TT will check that box on form 1040.

Even if he had less, he is allowed to file if he needs to get back income tax withholding. He cannot get back social security or Medicare tax withholding.

With the tax law change, effective 2018, most students will get the same refund whether they claim themselves or not. The personal exemption has been eliminated and the standard deduction increased.

[Carl]

Some things to note about the requirements:

 - The student's earnings do not matter. The student could earn a million dollars and still qualify as your dependent.

 - There is no requirement for the parents to provide the student any support. Not one single penny. The support requirement is on the student, and *only* the student.

 - Third party income such as scholarships, grants, 529 distributions, gifts from Aunt Mary, money from mom and dad, etc, *DO* *NOT* *COUNT* for the student providing their own support.

[Opus 17]

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@Carl wrote:

Some things to note about the requirements:

 - The student's earnings do not matter. The student could earn a million dollars and still qualify as your dependent.

 - There is no requirement for the parents to provide the student any support. Not one single penny. The support requirement is on the student, and *only* the student.

 - Third party income such as scholarships, grants, 529 distributions, gifts from Aunt Mary, money from mom and dad, etc, *DO* *NOT* *COUNT* for the student providing their own support.

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" - The student's earnings do not matter. The student could earn a million dollars and still qualify as your dependent."

Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration.  The exact wording is:

The child must not have provided more than half of his or her own support for the year.

For the child to earn a million dollars and not provide more than half their own support, they must have a hell of a lifestyle, or they're sending all their money to charities and child support and not spending anything on themselves.

The broader point is that if the child does not support him/herself at least 50.1%, you can claim them as a dependent, even if you don't provide support.  (It is enough that the child lives with you.)

Most of the time, tuition is a big enough expense that the child does not support him/herself more than half.  However, while scholarships and gifts don't count as support the child provides themself, student loans the child takes out in the child's name do count as support the child provides themself.  So in some cases, if the child has high earnings and is borrowing a lot for school, it might add up that the child pays more than half their own support.