The IRS allows qualifying education expenses to be applied to one of the following education benefits:

• American Opportunity Credit
• Lifetime Learning Credit
• Tuition and Fees Deduction

To enter your education expenses and qualifications:

1. From within your TaxAct return (Online or Desktop), click Federal. On smaller devices, click in the upper left-hand corner, then click Federal.
2. Click Education in the Federal Quick Q&A Topics menu to expand, then click Student Worksheet (tuition, scholarships).
3. Click + Add Student Information to create a new copy of the form or click Edit to review a form already created.
4. Continue with the interview questions for you to enter or review the appropriate information.
5. If the student received a Form 1098-T Tuition Statement, when you reach the screen titled Student Information - Educational Institution, be sure to click Yes under the question asking about Form 1098-T.

TaxAct will generally determine which education benefit is most advantageous for you based on the data entered on your return (such as income, filing status, amount of qualified expenses, etc.).

You can review or modify the tax treatment of the education expenses to see how the refund or amount owed may change between the American opportunity credit, lifetime learning credit, or tuition and fees deduction.

1. From within your TaxAct return (Online or Desktop), click Federal. On smaller devices, click in the upper left-hand corner, then click Federal.
2. Click Education in the Federal Quick Q&A Topics menu to expand, then click Education credit summary.
3. Click the Click here link in the "Click here to change the selected education benefit." statement near the bottom, then continue with the interview process to enter all of the appropriate information.

Once you have reviewed how each of the education credits or deduction affects your return, you may want to select Auto again to return to the education benefit automatically selected by TaxAct.

See IRS Publication 970 Tax Benefits for Education for more information.

Note that any link in the information above is updated each year automatically and will take you to the most recent version of the document at the time it is accessed.