I can't claim my daughter as a dependent. She is 19 and a full time student, she earned 4900 last year and I pay for well over half of her expenses

[salveto61-gmail-]

Turbo tax will not allow me to claim her education expenses either.  My conversation with IRS said she should be allowed as a dependent

[BillM223]

No, she should not.

To be a dependent, she would have to be a qualifying child or a qualifying relative.

She can't be a qualifying child because she is 19 and not in college (or is she?).

She can't be a qualifying relative because she made too much money.

Please review the Dependents' Table on page 27 of Pub 17.

[VolvoGirl]

@BillM223  She did say she's a full time student.  

There are a couple questions you could have answered wrong under My Info.  Click on My Info then click Edit by Dependents, then click Edit by their name and go though all the screens again.

First of all check their date of birth.

If your child was away at college, count the number of months away as having lived with you.  The correct answer to claim the person is to say "the whole year". This will indicate you supported the person the whole year, thus it will be entered on your return correctly showing up as a dependent.   Or if your child was born during the year they are considered to have lived with you the whole year so be sure to answer All Year (pick the top box for the Whole Year).

Or the one that says did your CHILD pay more than half of their support.  It's not asking if you did.

If you can't get it to change then try completely deleting them and re-entering them.  Sometimes that helps to clear something out.

[xmasbaby0]

If your daughter was a full-time student in 2023, and it is not letting you claim her, you have answered something incorrectly in MY INFO.    If she was NOT a full-time student in 2023 then no, you cannot claim her.

[xmasbaby0]

Living away at school is a "temporary absence" so you still need to say she lived with you all year if she was a student.   And.....if she is your dependent, you are the one who gets to enter education credit.    When she prepares her own tax return she must say on it that she can be claimed as someone else's dependent.

[BillM223]

Thanks, Volvogirl, I missed that - I tend to read the paragraphs rather than the headings 😉

Both of you are right that the poster obviously mistyped something and needs to review his/her input. Thanks!