I know that the typical answer to "Can a graduate student use the American Opportunity Tax Credit?" is no, because typically a college student spends 4 years getting their undergraduate (i.e. Bachelor's) degree. For the AOTC (from publication 970 from the IRS):
"As of the beginning of 2017, the student had not completed the first 4 years of postsecondary education (generally, the freshman through senior years of college), as determined by the eligible educational institution. For this purpose, don't include academic credit awarded solely because of the student's performance on proficiency examinations."
In my situation, I graduated with my bachelor's degree in 3 years (due to getting a lot of AP credits during high school). Then I went directly to graduate school. So, technically, that first year of graduate school was my 4th year of "postsecondary education". I should note that neither the AOTC nor the Hope credit has ever been claimed by or for me.
From directly reading the information from the IRS, it seems like I should be able to claim the AOTC despite having already graduated with a Bachelor's degree. Is this possible? It would significantly relieve my tax burden when compared to the Lifetime Learning Credit.
