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April 22, 2024
Question

HSA for graduating daughter

  • April 22, 2024
  • 1 reply
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I will not be claiming my daughter as a dependent for 2024 as she will only be a student for less than a year and I will not be providing support (I assume) for her after college graduation in May.  Do I need to reverse the HSA distributions used for her so far in 2024 since I will not claim her when filing 2024 taxes?  

    1 reply

    Employee
    April 22, 2024

    Unfortunately, if you don't claim your daughter as a dependent on your 2024 tax return, any expenses that you have reimbursed from the HSA will not be "qualified".

     

    However, note that a child is considered a full-time student if they were enrolled full time for at one day in 5 different months, so she is still a full time student for the dependent test if she is enrolled in the spring semester and graduates in May.  Then for the support test, the questions, for the whole year, did she provide "more than half" her own support.  Support you provide includes tuition, living expenses, and a pro-rata share of your household expenses for as long as she is considered to "live at home." (Rent or mortgage, repairs, food, utilities, etc.)  Students are generally considered to "live at home" even if they are away at college, unless they have established a real, permanent and independent residence on their own.  So the support test will depend on whether she comes back home to live with you after graduation, and for how long, and what kind of job she gets.  It's not impossible that she might be your dependent for 2024.   

     

    You may want to contact your HSA bank and ask what the deadline is to return a distribution.  You could return them now, but then take the distributions again to pay for those expenses if it turns out you can claim her, or you can wait to return the distributions until her situation is more clear.