If my son is a full time student living on campus how do I figure his living situation? I still support him

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
February 10, 2022
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TurboTax Deluxe Online

Bsch4477

Employee

If you are referring to the dependency rules, temporary living at school is treated as living at home.

Hal_Al

Employee

There are two types of dependents, "Qualifying Children"(QC) and standard ("Qualifying Relative" in IRS parlance even though they don't have to actually be related). There is no income limit for a QC but there is an age limit, student status, a relationship test and residence test.

A child of a taxpayer can still be a “Qualifying Child” (QC) dependent, regardless of his/her income, if:

He is under age 19, or under 24 if a full time student for at least 5 months of the year, or is totally & permanently disabled
He did not provide more than 1/2 his own support. Scholarships are excluded from the support calculation
He lived with the parent (including temporary absences such as away at school) for more than half the year

So, it doesn't matter how much he earned. What matters is how much he spent on support. Money he put into savings does not count as support he spent on him self.

The support value of the home, provided by the parent, is the fair market rental value of the home plus utilities & other expenses divided by the number of occupants.

MayaD

As long as your son didn't provide more than half of his own support, you can still claim him as a dependent if he meets all the other requirements of Qualifying child.

Worksheet for Determining Support

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Carl11_2

Employee

Understand that there is no requirement for the parents to provide the student any support. The support requirement is on the student - not the parents.

If the STUDENT did not provide more than half of THEIR OWN support for the entire tax year then they meet that requirement to qualify as your dependent.

Income from 3rd party sources such as scholarships, grants, 529 distributions, money from parents, gifts from Aunt Mary, etc. *do not count* for the student providing their own support.

If the student did not have a job or was not self-employed during the year, and/or they are not the *primary* borrower on a qualified student loan, then there's no way the student provided more than half of their own support.