I had less than 5 months of full time school enrollment in 2022 but accidentally clicked that I had more. How can I undo this? I lost my tax break & my fed refund shrank.

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
March 25, 2023
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Best answer by Hal_Al

Finished grad school by end of April 2022, so would have been a student < 5 months of 2022.

By accidentally selecting yes to "were you a student for more than 5 months of 2022" I lost a few hundred dollars of federal tax deductions.

I was looking around for that specific question in the deductions category so that I could redo it, but I was having trouble finding it.

I don't remember having to put in specific 1098-T data so I don't think it was that question.

Thanks

"I lost a few hundred dollars of federal" sounds like the savers credit.

Re-enter the Retirement Savings Contribution Credit interview:

Federal Tab

- Deductions and Credits

-Retirement and Investments.

- Retirement Savings Contribution Credit Click Update (or Revisit)

MAK70

Try going back to the Personal Info section and go through slowly and carefully to see if the question is there.

glombseAuthor

No. I don't see it in the my info section.

What happened was I was reviewing everything getting ready to file.

I went to the "deductions & credits" page, clicked through all the different ones,

But as I was reviewing I accidentally clicked whatever the questions was about 5 months of being a full time student.

I accidentally changed from no to yes and my federal refund decreased by several hundred dollars.

Now trying to undo this to add back the deduction and clarify that no I was only a full time student for 4 months in 2022.

MAK70

I would like to take a deeper look at this. However, I need a diagnostic file which is a copy of your tax return that has all of your personal information removed. You can send one to us by following the directions below:

Sign into your online account.
Locate the Tax Tools on the left-hand side of the screen.
A drop-down will appear. Select Tools
On the pop-up screen, click on “Share my file with agent.”
This will generate a message that a diagnostic file gets sanitized and transmitted to us.
Please respond back with the Token Number that was generated.

@glombse

Hal_Al

Employee

You will get that question, in the personal info section, if your birthdate indicates you were under age 24 on 12-31-22.

You will also get that question in the Retirement Savings Contribution Credit interview, under Deductions and Credits / Retirement and Investments.

"5 months" really means parts of 5 calendar months. So, two common examples: you were in college from Jan 31 thru May 1 or from Aug 31 thru Dec 1. Both of those would count as being a full time student for 5 months.

Being a full time student for 5 months means, you can, most likely, still be a "Qualifying child" dependent, regardless of how much income you had. If you can be a dependent, you do not qualify for some tax breaks.