How do I claim the $10k deduction for K-12 tuition? The "expenses and scholarship" questions and choices are all geared toward college expense.

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
January 25, 2020
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TurboTax Self Employed Online

xmasbaby0

Employee

EDUCATION EXPENSES

Education expenses for grades K-12 are not deductible on your Federal return, whether for private, public, or home schooling, nor are the expenses for tutoring, after school lessons or after school activities, such as dance lessons, sports, etc. Some states allow deductions/credits for K-12 education and/or home schooling expenses; if your state has these deductions available, you will be prompted to enter them when you prepare your state return. (As far as I know, the states that offer any sort of K-12 deductions/credits are Illinois, Indiana, Iowa,Louisiana, Minnesota, and Wisconsin)

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Hal_Al

Employee

Although there is no federal tuition credit or deduction, the 2018 tax law now allows 529 plan distributions for K-12.

samuel-ruby2Author

That's what I'm referring to. TurboTax seems to want you to enter your 1099-Q information, which makes all your 529 plan distributions taxable. How then to claim the 10k exemption for withdrawal for K-12 expenses? No guidance in the program, and the stock community answers are pre-2018 and misleading. I did figure out that working with actual tax forms, you would not report distributions at all, so long as all distributions were used for qualified expenses. But in my case I accidentally withdrew too much. If I were working directly on actual tax forms, the procedure (according to several articles) would be to report only the PORTION of the 1099-Q income that wasn't spent on qualified expenses. So I'll do that in TurboTax, and the income reporting should then be OK. I will also be subject to a 10% penalty on the income, but I'm not sure TurboTax has that figured out. The penalty section has an item for early retirement withdrawals, but not for over-withdrawal from a 529 plan.