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Get your taxes done using TurboTax
First, determine if the student your dependent.
Please be aware that the student is your dependent (and you could claim them as your Qualifying Child) if the student is:
- Your child and
- Under 24 at the end of the tax year and
- Lives with you for more than half the year (being away at school is counted as living at home if they intend to return) and
- The student did not supply more than half their own support
The student's income is not a factor in claiming them as your "Qualifying Child" dependent as long as they meet the above requirements and did not supply more than half their own support. Working a summer job usually does not supply more than half a student's support. Scholarships are not considered as support supplied by the student, but loans are. Income earned and saved does not apply to support, only income used to pay for living expenses are considered as part of the student's support.
If you need clarity on who is considered a dependent student, I suggest you use this link or post as a new question since that is a different topic.
To address your question, when funds are withdrawn from a 529 education savings plan for education expenses, it is always best to have the funds withdrawn or transferred to the school in the name of the student (beneficiary).
If you, as the owner of the account, make the withdrawal, only you can enter the 1099-Q into your TurboTax program since that form with then be issued to your Social Security Number. If the student is also claimed on your return, the program can assign the withdrawal to the student's education expenses. If you do not claim the student, you will need to indicate in the TurboTax program that the funds were used for education expenses for a student not listed on your return. This gets complicated as the student will then need to claim the assistance on their return without a 1099-Q, or adjust the amount of expenses they paid. TurboTax can do the calculations for this situation, but the input of the data is difficult for both taxpayers.
I suggest you first gain clarity as to if the student is your dependent. If they are, you can still "Not claim" them, however they still cannot claim themselves. They can file a tax return as a dependent whether they are claimed by someone or not.
If the student is your dependent, but your income will not allow you an education credit, you do have the option of "not claiming" the student in which case the student can file (as a dependent) and be eligible for the "NON-REFUNDABLE" portion of an education credit. The dependent student would select "Another taxpayer can claim me" and then "Another taxpayer will not claim me" (in other words, they are your dependent, but you are not claiming them on your tax return).
The student would then be eligible to apply for the non-refundable portion of the education credit. This non-refundable portion of the credit is only advantageous if the student has taxable income to which the non-refundable portion of the credit would apply.
You may find more useful information in IRS Pub 970, please see the chart on page 20 for when a dependent student may claim the non-refundable portion of an education credit.
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