There are three things you can do with your Qualified educational expenses (QEE):
- Allocate then to scholarships (so that the scholarship remains tax free)
- Use them to claim an education credit
- Allocate them to the 529 distribution (1099-Q) so that it will not all be taxable
TurboTax allocates QEE, in that order, until you tell it otherwise. You can choose to allocate them differently. So, to claim the tuition credit, go through the entire education interview until you reach a screen titled "Your Education Expenses Summary". Click edit next to the student's name. That should take you to a screen “Here’s your Education Summary”. Click edit next to “Education Information”. When you get to the screen titled “Amount Used to Calculate Education Deduction or Credit”, verify the amount you want to use or change it. It takes $10,000 of expenses to get the maximum $2000 Lifetime Learning credit or $4000 to get the maximum $2500 American Opportunity Credit
Instead, in the education interview, you may reach a screen titled "Choosing a larger education Credit". Verify that TT has entered $10,000 (the amount needed to get the maximum LLC) in the box on that page. In your case, change it to the amount you want to use.
PLAN C. On the Student Information Worksheet (abbreviated Student Info Wk on the forms list), go to part VI and change line 17 (“Used for credit”) to 4000. Make the change in the first column. That will automatically change the other columns.
See the sample above on how the taxable portion of the 1099-Q is calculated (repeated below). These calculations show on the 1099-Q worksheet. If the taxable amount is some percentage (10.55%) of the total distribution, it's also some (different) percentage of the earnings.
Example:
$10,000 in educational expenses(including room & board)
-$3000 paid by tax free scholarship***
-$4000 used to claim the American Opportunity credit
=$3000 Can be used against the 1099-Q (usually on the student’s return)
Box 1 of the 1099-Q is $5000
Box 2 is $600
3000/5000=60% of the earnings are tax free
60%x600= $360
You have $240 of taxable income (600-360)
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