Serving in the Military is a challenge, and balancing your expenses while trying to go to school at the same time is also a challenge. It can be difficult to make everything fit together, serving on Active Duty, attending or planning for college, and finding a way to make it all happen financially. Well one thing that many people fail to do is to investigate the way that attending college affects their tax burden. Often there are elements of going to college that are tax deductible, or that can be claimed on their taxes, thereby saving them money and making getting an education a little easier on the pocketbook.
If you are currently on Active Duty, and attending college, or on active duty and a member of your family is attending college then you may be able to claim a pretty healthy tax deduction for education expenses. If you pay tuition and fees, you may be able to claim up to $4,000 dollars in deductions off of your taxes. This amount is very helpful, and can be available even in some cases for those people who do not itemize their deductions. Congress has allowed for the deduction because they realize the challenge of trying to get an education and they agree that there needs to be a degree of tax relief for those who are trying to go to school.
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In addition to a tax deduction, there are a couple of other elements that affect your taxes. These two items are the Lifetime Learning Credit, and the Hope Learning Deduction. Both of them can affect your tax liability, so it’s important to investigate and find out which deductions of these that you qualify for. Even if you do not qualify for the Hope Learning deduction, or the Lifetime Learning credit, it is likely that you will qualify for the $4,000 education tax deduction. If these basic conditions are true then you are likely can claim the deduction: You pay expenses for an eligible student attending college, and the eligible student is yourself, a dependent or your spouse, you claim this person on your taxes, and these expenses are paid at an institution of higher learning, such as an accredited college or university.
If any of these conditions apply to you then you will be disqualified from taking the deduction:
-You file separately as a married person.
-You earn more adjusted income than $80,000 dollars.
-Someone else claims you as a deduction on their taxes, like your parents.
