@Xxsierra1986 said: "When I enter the full $5895 that the college charges, it qualifies me for the Education Credit. It then gives me a prompt that she has to claim that amount on her tax return, which increases her tax bill owed. Her tax bill owed is much less than the credit I receive, so the offset of it would be beneficial in the overall".
Q. Am I calculating this correctly? Can I claim that full room and board cost and qualify for the credit?
A. Yes. That is allowed. You may be able to slightly reduce to amount she is taxed on. See example below.
There is a tax “loop hole” available. 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 school’s billing statement specifically shows the scholarships being applied to tuition or if the conditions of the grant are that it be used to pay for qualified expenses.
Using an example: Student has $10,000 in box 5 of the 1098-T and $8000 in box 1. At first glance he/she has $2000 of taxable income and nobody can claim the American opportunity credit. But if she reports $6000 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 $1000 in expenses for those course materials, paid out of pocket, she would only need to report $5000 of taxable scholarship income, instead of $6000.
