Reading the eligibility details here and from the IRS, I meet all the qualifications for the American Opportunity Credit. Moreover, using TurboTax Home and Business 2018, I answer the questions, and I am told that I qualify for this credit. For completeness, at this stage I am also informed by TT that I don't qualify for the Tuition and Fees Deduction, the reason being that "Form 8917, Tuition and Fees Deduction Not Available for 2018 (but I read up on that, it should have no impact on AOC qualification). So now I click the button "Maximize My Education Tax Break" which should calculate whether its better for me to take the AOC or the LLC (Lifetime Learning Credit) and it does a short 'analyzing, calculating, finding' progress bar thing then asks me to continue. Now it tells me that I can't claim an education tax break. The 3 possible reasons it gives are
- There is no taxable income on my return (but there is, about $1500 for the year, and regardless, the AOC credit should be a CREDIT).
- Scholarships, grants and other tax free assistance exceed the education expenses (I previously entered into TT that I received $15,000 in scholarships, to put towards a total tuition expense of $30,000 So obviously, my expenses exceeded my assistance).
- There were no net qualified education expenses. What exactly does this mean? My 'gross' education expenses were 30K, minus the scholarship assistance, 15K, so my 'net' qualified expenses should be 15k, correct?
Last year I qualified for the AOC, and my situation was virtually identical. What has changed, am I truly not eligible, despite the fact that I can go through all the qualifier items and verify that I should be?
