@anonymouse1 for 2026, you may be misunderstanding what "financial support" means. It's ALL the financial support provided to her during the ENTIRE year; it's not just from the day she finds a full time job until the end of the year. The IRS has a formula for "support" - and it suprises most
I would encourage you to complete the worksheet on page 16 .... Even if she finds a fulltime job in 2026 she may still not be providing 50% of her own support. The value of YOUR home and the number of other dependents (i.e. her siblings) are some of the key drivers of how the IRS determines "support". That same worksheet would also determine whether she is subject to kiddie tax, even with a full time job post graduation.
Completing the form also creates defensible documentation that she is not subject to Kiddie Tax, should she ever be audited.
https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p501.pdf
if your income is too high to claim AOTC, then your daughster could claim it if a) you do not claim her and b) her income exceeds $15750. But since you could claim her and decide not to, as Hal_Al stated, the entire tax credit is non-refundable. At $16,000 of income the tax is $25, so that is all the benefit of AOTC that she could muster.
If you are not able to claim her as a dependent, then the benefit of AOTC to her with a full time job is much greater. But again, even in the year of her graduation, she may still be eligible to be your dependent if she is under 24 years old and was a full-time student (i.e. went to school for at least 5 months of 2026).
