There are two things to understand here.
- Who can claim the student as a dependent
- Who can claim the education stuff
Those two are totally separate and independent determinations from each other.Lets talk about the dependency claim, and *ONLY* the dependency stuff at this time.
Understand that if your parents qualify to claim you as a dependent, then you must indicate so on your own tax return. The key word here is *QUALIFY*. So it flat out *does* *not* *matter* if your parents claim you or not. If your parents *QUALIFY* to claim you as a dependent on their tax return, then you the student just flat out do not have a choice here. You *MUST* select the option for *I can be claimed on someone else's tax return".
"I am a student with my own single-member LLC."
That doesn't matter. On the dependency qualification for your parents to qualify to claim you, you can earn a million dollars and your parents still qualify to claim you as a dependent. There are no income limits what-so-ever on the student.
"Can I still claim this deduction even if I’m not the one paying for the tuition?"
Absolutely not. That would be double-dipping. Qualified education expenses claimed in the Education section of *ANY* return, can not be claimed again in the business section or any other section of your tax return for that matter.
