<p>Hi my name is Lauren, I'm currently a 19 year old college student who has been living away from home. My mother and I are having a hard time coming to an agreement on whether she should claim me on her taxes for last year (2011) or I should claim myself as head of house hold.
Now, the problem is that I moved out of the house in June, which is exactly at 6 months- one of the four requirements to be a dependent. This means that my mother only payed for over 50% of my cost of living for 6 months. My mother's argument is that she needs to claim me because she gets tax deductions and it benefits her, I am worried that the money my mother will receive is money that I could receive if I claimed myself. Neither of my parents help me pay for tuition or my housing. I have heard from several college students that you can get more money if you claim yourself, is this true? Which receives more money the parent or the student?</p>
<p>It depends and the only way to know if to do taxes both ways. I know my nephew who is a college sr just went through this with his parents. He makes a lot of money working PT in his college major throughout the year, much more than most college students. His parents have always claimed him until this year when he told them he wanted any refund that would be due him if he filed. They refused, he refused to let them file for him and now they aren’t talking. </p>
<p>I think you both should sit down, do the taxes both ways and come up with some kind of compromise/solution. I am not sure as a single without dependents you can claim head of household, can you?</p>
<p>Often the student earns little to no income and ends up paying no taxes anyway so whether they claim themselves or not doesn’t make a difference. Meanwhile the parent usually does have an income and the deduction can make a difference.</p>
<p>It’s easy enough for you to test this by calculating your taxes both with and without the deduction.</p>
<p>If you find it benefits you to take the deduction will you share 50% with your mom since she supported you for half the year?</p>
<p>Edit - cross posted with ‘mamom’ but we both had the same suggestion - try it both ways.</p>
<p>Lauren, you will not be able to claim head of household unless you are also a mother. You could claim single, however, the amount that you will get back even with the American opportunity credit will most likely not be as beneficial to you. And even if you are living away from home since it is the result of going to school, you would still be considered living at home. </p>
<p>Even though you say your parents don’t pay for tuition or housing, do they give you any money, take out any loans, etc? She did support you for 50% of the time, so this year at least I would say she would be the best person to claim you. You must be making a good amount of money to cover tuition, room, board, transportation, entertainment, personal items, etc (all part of calculating support).</p>
<p>Let us know what you decide! </p>
<p>I have this same problem. My parents do not support me in any way. My mom might give me $100 once a year as a gift because she feels bad. I work 20 hours/week during the school year and full time during the summer to support myself. </p>
<p>My parents want to claim me because they feel it is my duty to let them because they provided for me until I graduated high school. However, I am 22 now and will be graduating this May from college, and I feel like ethically, I should claim myself. I ran the numbers, and it will provide them a greater benefit to claim me than it would if I claimed myself. And I will be losing out some money if I claimed myself, albeit it’s not a large amount (~$200)</p>
<p>What do I do?</p>
<p>The IRS will reject your parents’ tax return if you claim yourself without letting them know. And the IRS could reject your tax return if your parents already submitted their return and it was accepted by the IRS.</p>
<p>Urbanite, the bottom line is that if your parents are not supporting you as a dependent, then they should not be claiming an exemption for you.</p>
<p>You are an adult now, living independently from your parents. Why should you be subsidizing them and ending up out-of-pocket from your meager income?</p>
<p>Be careful. The parents may change their will.</p>
<p>If the parents need to leech off their financially-independent, lower-income kid by way of demanding the kid surrender his/her tax exemption, and the parents now only give the kid a $100 gift per year, then I wouldn’t expect that the parents have much to bequeath.</p>
<p>Guys, the truth is in the numbers. But this thread is encouraging - it seems like full rides are easy to obtain!</p>
<p>Check on the tax advantages- ie do it both ways as suggested above. Our tax accountant saved son/us money by having him be his dependent instead of ours while he was still a student some years- he is a stickler for doings things correctly so it was okay. Do the math and if it helps for you to claim yourself as your own deopendent have your mother agree to this.</p>
<p>ps- never give out personal info, such as your name, if possible on forums.</p>
<p>If you live with your parents for at least 6 months, most likely you are still considered dependent. </p>
<p>If you paid your own tuition and books, you can have your parents deduct that expenses in their tax return. </p>
<p>Personally, I think it would be more beneficial if you allow your parent to claim you as their dependent, so that they can get that earned income tax credit.</p>
<p>Also think about your health insurance, you might not be qualified to continue in their plan if your parents don’t claim you as dependent.</p>
<p>What my sister did in this situation was run the numbers both ways… What she would get claiming herself add single and what my parents would get claiming her as a dependent. She wound up claiming and paying then the amount they would have gotten had they claimed her. She wound up more money in the end and they got what they would have gotten anyway.</p>
<p>Let’s see … if my D claims the exemption her taxes are reduced by $230. If I claim it DW and I save $3200. What to do? What to do?</p>
<p>I think the number crunching is the easy part. I believe the standard is > 50% of support, so 50% for half a year isn’t even close. The hard part is everyone seeing eye to eye with the end result (including the IRS). I almost started a similar thread yesterday. I have always claimed my 2 sons on my tax return. This year, one son made some money working, but even the son with no earnings was supported with money either from a 529 plan or from a savings account that is in his own name. I don’t think I need to claim them anyway, so I won’t.</p>