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I'm going to Sacramento for a week to see some clients in person. These are either people that don't do computers and/or some special ones I like to socialize with. I'm not set up here to see people. Remote or nothing! i bill if I have to get dressed. Last year I wore slippers for everyone. Bought black ones so it wasn't as obvious as the bright pink fluffy ones.

I work at my home office. If I have to put shoes on, someone is getting a bill.

Reminds me of a couple summers ago when I was still at my home office only. Client dropped by unexpectedly to discuss a situation that had just come up. I was working in my garden after a rain, mud from hands to elbows and from feet to knees. He paid me to sit on my back porch with him and talk, while he pulled pertinent documents and held them so I could read them. Then he opened my back door at my direction and put all the papers on the kitchen table - I wasn't going to touch them until after I'd cleaned up, which wasn't going to be until I was done in the garden! And he apologized for interrupting my work, and then made nice comments about my garden.

It all is in the perspective ---- I have two clients that all they do is chat === phone === but a VERY different business than taxes. They make excellent dollars and set own hours, etc. with a very restrictive/different cliental. They enjoy "chatting" but it is definitely not for everyone.

The lender will only issue the 1098E in the name of the son (primary borrower). So even if the father were to make payments directly he would not receive a 1098E. That settles it for me. Only the son will claim the deduction. Thank you all for the replies!

Well, you do have a point, Rita. Reminds me of the time I was speaking with a banker at church, when another member walked up to us. She reminded me of a previous conversation when I had told her she should not apply for a separate Fed ID Number for a sub-ministry of the church because it needed to fall under the blanket exemption the church enjoyed. She said she had called IRS and they had told her it was OK to do, so they sent her the application form and she had filed it anyhow. I thanked her for letting me know and she went on her way. The banker then asked if it bothered me that she didn't listen to what I had originally told her. I told him it really didn't bother me that someone didn't value advice I gave for free, because people frequently pay me for advice they don't follow...

It would be even more pleasant if somebody paid me to chat. There's that...

Why is this so complicated? The father did NOT pay the loan but instead gave the cash to the son, who did pay the loan. Son gets to deduct the interest. Now, since they are both legally obligated, and if the interest is say $5k, I don't see a problem with Dad making half the payments and son making the other half (with Dad's money). In that case, they could both deduct $2500. That might be a tactic for next year. I have always had a complaint about the limits on the student loan interest deduction. For single filers it starts to phase out at $65k AGI, double that for MFJ. These are the people who make too much to get grants so rely on loans. Make less and you can get Pell grants; make more and you can presumably afford the cost of college. But make $65k and you can't get grants and can't deduct all your loan interest either. Just another one of those items congress passed to make it look like they were helping voters out with college costs but wrote rules denying those people the benefits. (Exactly like the credit for the elderly--how many of those has anyone actually done?) And don't get me started about why it seems no one actually saves for their kids' education. The student loan situation is crippling our young, they can't move out of Mom's basement or start a family, total student loan debt is larger than credit card debt, blah blah. Easier to complain about the high cost of education and loans than to put away even a modest amount every month when children are young to ease the burden when the time comes.