<p>Which is the way to go for your kids who are still in high school but taking college classes and list on their 1098-T as "at least half-time" - Hope or Lifetime?</p>
<p>Is it better to choose Lifetime now and hold off on Hope until they are graduated from high school and attending college full time or what?</p>
<p>For 2009, the Hope credit was expanded to provide $2,500 per year of maximum credits ( 100% on first $2,000 of qualified tuition and 25% on next $2,000) each year for the full four years. The Hope Credit is available per kid and the lifetime learning credit is available per tax return. However, you can’t use both for the same kid at the same time for the same year. Thus, I would use the lifetime credit for courses taken in high schools at colleges and use the Hope credit thereafter. Obvioulsy, this advice may change as to whether you use some prepaid tuition plan or section 529 monies,which reduce the tuition for the credits. In addition, this would also be dependant on how much in scholarships they receive.</p>
<p>If you save the 529 for later when they’re actually in college, can you still claim the Hope or Lifetime?</p>
<p>Any tuition paid for with Section 529 money or prepaid tuition money does NOT qualify for either credit.</p>
<p>Hey Taxguy–as you’re here and being so helpful, I have a LLCredit question: I just realized, looking at the form, that they want you to subtract any scholarships/grants received from amount paid–is that correct? S’s 1098 lists how much we paid, and lists how much grant he got. But the grant does not offset what we paid; the “how much we paid” is after grant was already applied. So, do we have to subtract grant?</p>
<p>That doesn’t seem to make sense to me. If a student, to make up numbers, had 30K tuition, and got a 16K grant, then parents might have paid 14K tuition. but subtracting grant means they don’t qualify for the LL or Hope credits.</p>
<p>Am i reading something wrong here? Thanks!</p>