TT says my child needs to claim over $4367 as income (in addition to her job at the school cafeteria) because TT says she got more financial aid than she needed. This I don't understand b/c on her 1098-T it shows tuition of $14842 and scholarships of $6323 that were paid directly to the school. Her 1099-Q reports distributions of $7719, of which I used $2477 for tuition and $5240 for rent (I just venmo her food money and never claim it, and she lives in an apt off-campus). If I subtract the $6323 scholarship from the $14842 tuition, that still leaves $8519 tuition due. TT also asks if the entire scholarship amt is for 2023, so I marked no, $1956 is for some 2024 tuition. The 1099-Q shows a total distribution of $7717, so even though TT doesn't know what exactly I spent the 1099-Q distribution on, it could clearly have been used 100% towards tuition (since the $7717 distribution is less than the remaining $8519 due for tuition.) TT says she used her scholarship, which is paid directly to the school for tuition and other mandatory campus fees, towards "unqualified" expenses, and therefore the other $4367 needs to be reported as income. Is TT making an error on this? I really don't believe her scholarship that is paid directly towards her tuition at school should count as income, when the scholarship is less than the tuition amount, and still less than the tuition amount even if I add the 1099-Q distribution ($7717)to the amount of the scholarship ($6323, of which $4367 was used to pay 2023 tuition).
My other question was just whether my daughter can claim the AOTC if she is still my dependent? We've only claimed it 2 years so far, but I've always claimed it. I don't qualify for the full $2500 this year, so thought maybe it would be better to have her claim it.
