I am going to call the IRS on Monday, but maybe some of you are educated in this situation.

We are paying our oldest ds's tuition to go to College in Iowa. We pay tuition and books.

I was planning on claiming these costs this year on our taxes, but not claiming him as a dependent.
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Can that be done?

We just did our taxes and like you, we paid for DD's tuition in January of 2008. We had to claim her in order to claim the tuition. She actually got married in August, so hopefully we won't be in trouble for this, but it looks like you can claim them if you supported them for at least 6 months out of the year.

My guess would be no. I did a quick google search and found this link:

1040.com - Education Credits

Requirements to Claim Hope and Lifetime Learning Credit
You paid qualified higher education expenses for an eligible student.
The eligible student is yourself, your spouse, or a dependent for whom you are claiming an exemption.
The expenses were paid for the current tax year or the first three months of the succeeding tax year.
Your filing status is single, head of household, qualifying widow(er), or married filing jointly.
You cannot be claimed as a dependent on another person's tax return.
Your 2008 modified adjusted gross income is less than $116,000 for married filing jointly filing status, or $58,000 for all other eligible filing statuses.
You are not claiming the lifetime learning credit or the tuition and fees deduction for the same student."

Since you are not claiming him as a dependent, I would go with no. I'm sure if you google the IRS publication, you can get that actual publication.

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Doing the right thing isn't always the same as doing the easy thing.

I would say no as well.

impatien, be sure your DD who got married does not claim herself on her taxes (ie: filing jointly with new hubby) or you might be setting yourself up for an audit

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Proud to say I haven't shopped at a Wal-Mart since Sept 2003

Thanks..

I stayed up last night and did some research, and pretty much found out the same thing.

The only thing is, the difference between not claiming him, and claiming him, is $4,000 back on our refund! yowzers! That is hard to just give up, but I know he wants to file using himself because he did work for the first 6 mos of 2008 and made really good money. He also cashed out his 401k (against my advice!!) so he owes that ever horrible early withdrawal tax.

You might have him figure his taxes and 401K penalties and see what he gets back. If it's less than the four thousand, maybe claim him yourself, then give him so much of your $4,000 benefit that he would have realized. Does that make sense? That way he gets his, but you don't lose yours, either.

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Reading is Fundamental.

That was what I was thinking as well.

talked to my mom (who is an EA) and she said the person who claims the dependent gets the credit. She said if the parents were divorced and Dad paid the tuition but mom took the child as the dependent, the Mom could take the deduction

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Proud to say I haven't shopped at a Wal-Mart since Sept 2003

Wow after taking a long needed rest after being "People" for 46 hours since Weds I see you all got what you needed.

Kathy I would work on his taxes both ways claiming himself as a dependent and not claiming the dependency exemption to see what is most beneficial to everyone. Stay on him next time he does the dumb move of pulling a 401K out and not rolling it over into an IRA or even a Coverdell Educational Fund saves you a lot of the 10% penalty headache. You know if he made more than the $5450 standard deduction it maybe in his best interests financially to claim himself, because if you claimed him and got that $4,000 extra it may not help to pay any deficiency he has if he should owe. Hope that makes sense, my brain is just not in Tax Mode today I think they tried to kill me at work LOL but hey I love it, its on 3 months a year FT and 1-2 days per month the rest of the year.

Smurf didn't realize your Mom was an EA, I just got my Notary and am hoping in the next 2-3 years to get my EA, they are trying to have one Notary and EA per location and we have no EA this year.

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~ Christine ~
Grammie to Trinity Lorayne Jean Keens Born June 9, 2011 Loving my awesome guitar picking 100% Country Boy boyfriend Kenny !
RIP Daddy~ 01/24/1930-06/01/2007 I miss you !
Dont Think you Can .. know you can ~ Jeff Hardy

thanks everyone!.. itscc.. he made over $15,000 in the first six months of last year. I am waiting on his phone call with his information so I can get started seeing which way might be better. But I think I know the answer.

Yeah, it's nice having someone who knows the ins and outs of taxes. She has her own tax and investment business in CA. She told me she knows a guy who has taken the test to be an EA around 4 or 5 times and still hasn't passed and he's done taxes for over 20 years (she's been doing them for 30 years almost).

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Proud to say I haven't shopped at a Wal-Mart since Sept 2003

Wow you are going to have to do a sheet on who provided more than half his support to see if you can claim him , my gut is depending on how much you paid for tuition you cant claim him. I wish I could find a job to make that much in 6 months ! it would solve all my financial problems !

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~ Christine ~
Grammie to Trinity Lorayne Jean Keens Born June 9, 2011 Loving my awesome guitar picking 100% Country Boy boyfriend Kenny !
RIP Daddy~ 01/24/1930-06/01/2007 I miss you !
Dont Think you Can .. know you can ~ Jeff Hardy