It would appear on the surface, no. There are two paths to qualify as a dependent. The rules are listed below for each. A person must pass all the tests in one or the other path. In your case it appears your daughter does not meet all the tests in either path.
First the easy one the Dependent relative must not have made over $4,400 for the year.
The key tests in dependent child path are
1. Must be under age 24 as a full-time student. She just needed to be a full-time student for any part of 5 months in the year. They do not need to be consecutive. Full-time is defined by the college/university she is attending. So assuming she was full-time Aug - Dec she would meet this test.
Finally, 2. Did she provide over 1/2 of her total support for the year? Since she made over $40,000 for the year you may have difficulty showing that is not more than 1/2 of her own support. However, it is possible.
Below is extracted from IRS Publication 501, you can click here to access the publication for more information such as how to figure support:
To be a qualifying child:
- The child must be your son, daughter, stepchild, foster child, brother, sister, half brother, half sister, stepbrother, stepsister, or a descendant of any of them.
- The child must be (a) under age 19 at the end of the year and younger than you (or your spouse if filing jointly), (b) under age 24 at the end of the year, a student, and younger than you (or your spouse if filing jointly), or (c) any age if permanently and totally disabled.
- The child must have lived with you for more than half of the year.
- The child must not have provided more than half of his or her own support for the year.
- The child must not be filing a joint return for the year (unless that joint return is filed only to claim a refund of withheld income tax or estimated tax paid).
To be a qualifying relative:
- The person can't be your qualifying child or the qualifying child of any other taxpayer.
- The person either (a) must be related to you in one of the ways listed under Relatives who don't have to live with you , or (b) must live with you all year as a member of your household (and your relationship must not violate local law).
- The person's gross income for the year must be less than $4,400.
- You must provide more than half of the person's total support for the year.
For more information please see the TurboTax Help article Who can I claim as my dependent? to see all of the factors that may qualify you.
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