According to this IRS webpage, to be eligible to claim the AOTC or LLC, the law requires a taxpayer (or a dependent) to have received Form 1098-T, Tuition StatementPDF, from an eligible educational institution, whether domestic or foreign.
However, the FAQs at this IRS webpage indicate that, in general, a student must receive a Form 1098-T to claim an education credit, but an eligible educational institution is not required to provide the Form 1098-T to you in certain circumstances, for example:
- Nonresident alien students, unless the student requests the institution to file Form 1098-T,
- Students whose tuition and related expenses are entirely waived or paid entirely with scholarships or grants, or
- Students for whom the institution does not maintain a separate financial account and whose qualified tuition and related expenses are covered by a formal billing arrangement with the student’s employer or a government agency, such as the Department of Veterans Affairs or the Department of Defense.
An eligible educational institution is a school offering higher education beyond high school. It is any college, university, vocational school, or other post-secondary educational institution eligible to participate in a Federal student aid program run by the U.S. Department of Education. This includes most accredited public, nonprofit and privately-owned–for-profit post-secondary institutions.
If your courses meet all of the qualifications, since your school is an eligible institution, you could choose to claim the LLC. However, you may expect to receive an IRS notice proposing to disallow the credit if the school did not file a Form 1098-T with the IRS. At that point, you would need to provide convincing documentation to the IRS that the courses qualify and the reason why you didn't receive Form 1098-T.
**Say "Thanks" by clicking the thumb icon in a post
**Mark the post that answers your question by clicking on "Mark as Best Answer"
