Am I considered an independent if I used about 80% of my financial aid on food and apartment expenses?

[Opus 17]

The question is "can you be claimed as a dependent" by someone else, which is slightly different concept than "am I independent."

You can be claimed as a dependent by your parents if you live with them more than half the year, meet the age and full time school requirement, and don't provide more than half your own support.

I won't go into the age and school requirement here unless you ask.  For "lived with" your parents, your parents are allowed to consider you as living at home even if you are away on a temporary absence, and being at college is almost always considered a "temporary absence," since in most cases the student returns home for breaks and summers.  If you have definitely moved out and won't be returning, then you might not be considered to live with them any more. 

For support, "providing your own support" means money from your own earnings, savings, and loans you take out in your name.  Scholarship money and gifts that don't have to be paid back does not count as support you provide yourself.  Your financial needs include tuition, rent, food, utilities, travel, and medical expenses.  If your parents provide you a home for 3 months out of the year, and if you are on their medical insurance, that counts as support you don't provide yourself, along with any direct expenses they pay for you.

You may need to make an inventory of your financial needs and expenses, and how much you provide, and how much is provided by others, to calculate if you really provided more than half your own support.

Most importantly, try not to claim that you are not a dependent if your parents claim you as a dependent.  This will start and IRS investigation of both of you, and you don't want that.  You and your parents should be in agreement if at all possible.

[joenathanblue]

Thank you for the detailed response. There is a bit of information that I had left out from my previous question. 

I am currently living in an apartment off campus that I have been paying monthly with my scholarship money. Furthermore, I live about 2 hours away from my mother and pay for groceries and clothes with money that I earn from my on campus job. She does provide me with about 200 dollars maybe every 2 to 2.5 months in case I need something.

Furthermore, I’m on a full paid tuition scholarship, so I receive about 22000 per year to attend my university. Of course, I don’t get all of it deposited into my bank account as tuition and other costs are deducted from the total. This scholarship amount is a few thousand higher than what my mom makes in a given year. 

Every summer I return back to my mom’s home, but I tend to get a job and continue paying my rent from the apartment close to my school as my contract is full term. 

Listing all of this out makes it somewhat clear to me that I should not file as dependent. However, I want to make sure with someone that is more knowledgeable with how filing taxes work.

My question now is, with the given information provided above, should I file as not dependent for the 2019 year? 

[Opus 17]

There is a detailed worksheet in publication 501 you may want to review.  https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p501.pdf

For purposes of the definition of a "qualifying child" dependent, scholarships don't count as support you provide yourself.  That tends to make it more difficult for a college student to be able to claim to provide more than half their support.  Money you earn or borrow in your own name counts as support you provide yourself, but your parents could arguably claim a portion of their household expenses for the entire year as support, since they maintain a home for you the entire year even if you are away most of it.  You may want to use the worksheet provided.

I can't give any better opinion than I already stated.  Most importantly, you and your parents need to be on the same page, because if you disagree (they claim you and you state you can't be claimed) then both of you will be investigated and have to provide detailed financial and living information to prove your case.  As long as you and your parents are in agreement (to claim or not to claim), it is not likely the IRS will ever question either way.