<p>So do I claim my son as a dependant now that he has left for college? He lived at home long enough for me to do so. But...
He has a "work study" grant good for $2500 a year at the school. I told him to claim "1" on his W4.
He recieved a $10,000 scholarship from the company I work for.
He has had no other prior jobs or income to claim.</p>
<p>Can anyone point towards information for the do-it-yourselfer? I do my own taxes with an online program. I'm sure it will walk me through the steps come tax time but I would like to know what to expect before-hand. We (his parents) didn't put out any money for him, he is footing the whole bill.</p>
<p>Are you paying for college? Even if not, if you paid for his living expenses for 8 months, you can claim him. It is worth a lot more to you than to him.</p>
<p>We claimed both of our kids as dependents in undergrad school for all four years and DS also in grad school as we were providing more than 50% of his support. </p>
<p>You will probably get a better tax break yourselves using the tuition tax credit (which keeps changing names…don’t know what it’s called now) than your son will. Heck if he only earns $2500 he isn’t even required to FILE a tax return.</p>
<p>Another consideration is that - at least with my health insurance - I can only cover my dependent 19+ full time students. If they are not on my taxes, I am not supposed to be able to include them on my policy. Not sure that the insurance company would check but that is the requirement.</p>
<p>scualum…I’m not sure that is true with the new health insurance legislation. Kids must be covered until age 26 and they don’t have to be students. I don’t think they need to be dependents either but I think they DO need to live in the same state as you.</p>
<p>We wanted to maintain California residency status for our daughter, in case she wished to return to the University of California system for graduate study (she’s now out of state). According to the UC website when we researched this several years ago, documentation to determine residency status includes: 1) Dependent status on CA resident parents’ income tax statement; CA driver’s license; registered and active voter in CA elections. Things may have changed, but that played a role in our declaring her as a dependent for the past 3 years.</p>
<p>There are tax benefits for the parents if you claim him, what are the reasons not to claim him? I don’t know of any. My D doesn’t make enough to pay any federal tax on her income, and aren’t they still considered dependents for financial aid even if the parents don’t claim them?</p>
<p>Don’t remember the details now, but IIRC trying to deduct the tuition payment did nothing for us if we claimed student as a dependent, because of the AMT. If the student filed not as a dependent, some trivial amount of the tuition payment did serve as a deduction. better than nothing.</p>
<p>We got FAR more benefit from declaring our kids as dependents in college then not. So we did and they didn’t. This year is our last year declaring DD and we will so miss her tax deduction contribution :)</p>
<p>There are a lot of variables depending on both your income levels, AMT status etc. The year my DD graduated, we would have received no benefit to claim her but she save hundreds. Its not just the exemption, there are tax credits you can only qualify for if you are not someone else’s dependent.</p>
<p>You just have to run it both ways through the software but I would think in general, the more money you both make, the less benefit the parent receives for a dependent.</p>
<p>I guess that makes sense. I’m always learning something new here. We are nowhere near the AMT levels, and some of that tuition tax credit was even refundable for us last year.</p>
<p>I guess I am waiting to see what the new policy actually says on health insurance. Open enrollment for me is in November so I expect to learn more then. Sure hope it is no constraints until 26 but I’m taking a wait and see… Different state would be a problem for me as DS goes to college out of state.</p>