<p>I know annoyingdad is right. What I’m saying is if the decision is made to delay the AOC, a decision has to be made if the student has a job offer to start in June. Part of the reason for delaying AOC is because of scholarships, so I’m presuming the student still have some scholarships Senior year.</p>
<p>What I’m suggesting is that a student who starts a job where he is moving out in June, he is likely to qualify as supporting himself. The trick lies in how a scholarship is treated for the support test. For a qualifying child who is the child of the taxpayer (only a child of the taxpayer, not another QC), scholarship are NOT counted as support. The student’s income from June to December, plus loans in the student’s name, and any other income they have will be compared to total support which will include the same, plus only the portion of expenses January-May that were not covered by scholarships.</p>
<p>If funds are coming from a 529 account, they are considered gifts that were given when deposited to the account, so they can also considered support on the student side. (IRS has not given concrete guidance on 529 distributions, though they have on Coverdell accounts which are owned by the student).</p>
<p>Assuming the parents provided $10,000 support during the Spring semester (which may or may not be a high figure), the student only needs to earn $10,000 (minus any loan amounts in the student’s name), from June-December to meet the support test (more than 50% self support) to claim the refundable portion of the AOC.</p>