If I’m going to be claimed as dependent on parents tax return, can parents itemized the housing and meal cost?
Do you mean claim an itemized deduction on their tax return for your housing and meal costs at college? If that is your question, the answer is NO.
Nor can you if you try to claim yourself.
The IRS assumption is that your parents would be feeding you at home if you weren’t at school and also providing housing. So those costs while you are in school are not deductible.
Yes that’s what I meant. Thank you all for clarifying.
My D is going to live in an apartment on campus (not school property) next year intended to save some money. Unless R&B on campus, apartment rent and food cost are not QEE even for 529. Now we have to leave the money for D2 as her tuition/fee is pretty much covered by scholarships and grant already.
^^ I thought that for 529 purposes, you could use funds for off campus food/rent as long as it didn’t exceed the college’s estimated cost for room and board included in its COA.
That is correct.
As long as student is more than 1/2 time student and doesn’t exceed COA
I’m curious about where the question comes from. Are your parents under the impression that they can do this or is this something you were just wondering about (and maybe going to suggest to them)?
i wonder if the question was American Opportunity Tax Credit related? i know we sure wish we could use that credit for the R&B we pay for our 2 kids. . . .
^^^Oh of course. If a student received a scholarship or aid that covered tuition and fees, parents might reasonably wonder if they could take the tax credit against the remaining costs.
^You might be able to if the student declares some of the scholarship as taxable and use of scholarship is not restricted.
For example my D has a tuition scholarship. That is tax free. But we can’t claim tuition expenses for AOTC.
She also had scholarships to use for other expenses.
She could have reported as taxable the difference between remaining scholarships and fees/books, but we opted to have her declare $1,000 more in scholarships as taxable income and then claim the fees and book expenses of $1000 for AOTC.