Tuition question

[JJStephens]

Help me thaw my brain freeze.

Taxpayer's daughter is a college student but still lives at home (qualifies as a dependent). Parents provide all support except that she has a PT job to pay her tuition. Do mom & dad get to claim the tuition or is it lost (since she won't be able to claim herself on her own return)?

BTW, this is my first post this year. I've periodically monitored the board (as usual, great stuff!) but haven't needed to ask till now. Just had a brain freeze on this one. Guess its from too many hours--in addition to my tax work I'm also pastoring full time and contending with a wife who is (finally) recovering from an 8 month long serious illness. But the weather is improving, she's getting better, only two more weeks of taxes and Easter's coming!

[Lion EA]

Happy Easter! Well, there are differences in all the education-related things (student loan interest stays with the one liable and who pays), but the short answer is that the education credit follows the dependency exemption. Parents can take an education credit for amounts they pay for tuition for themselves and their dependents. They would have a better paper trail if they paid the college directly, but can you trace it as parents providing funds to student for support which includes college costs? Someone who does more of these will jump in, but wanted to keep your question up top!

[Terry D EA]

Normally, the tuition deduction follows the exemption so the parents can take the deduction. They may not have paid the tuition but they definitely provided the housing, meals;etc as the daughter lived at home.

[kcjenkins]

They can take it. The PT Job may have provided her funds, but so did Mom & Dad, and the money that paid her tuition could just as well have been from their contributions, with the job money going to other things. It would be crazy to leave the deduction on the table just because the folks did not write the check themselves.