@mgzimmer Yes, your parents paid alot - by the way the IRS looks at it.
assuming you were a permanent resident of their home and were temporarily living elsewhere, you would need to fill out the form i noted above where you compare your expenses against their expenses.
Let's take a simple example. Say you paid rent (and that was your only living expense - let's keep this simple) somewhere else and $1,000 was your fair share. But the rent on your parent's aparment was $10,000 over the course of the year. If there were 3 people living in your parent's apartment (Mom, Dad, you, even though you were temporarily living elsewhere), that is $3,333 per person. And since $1,000 is less than 50% of $3,333, you did NOT pay more than 50% of your support costs. I appreciate in your eyes you paid "everything" but that is not how the IRS looks at it.
Again, you would have to complete worksheet 2 on Line 16 to determine whether you indeed paid more than 50% of your living expenses. And let's say you amended your return AND your parents did claim you, you are going to have to justify your position with the IRS and completing this form to the best of your ability would be required, I suspect.
