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Instruction for How to Fill IRS Form 8863

Audrey Goodwin

2024-04-18 11:56:27 • Filed to: Other IRS Forms • Proven solutions

If you want to claim your educational credit, you can do that with the IRS Form 8863. The government has also let you calculate the Lifetime Learning Credit along with the American Opportunity Credit. The American Opportunity Credit can pay you up to $2500. And if you claim Lifetime Learning Credit then you can get up to $2000.

Your Best Solution 8863to Fill out IRS Form 8863

You need to fill IRS Form 8863 with the carefully with the correct information. Even though there are many software that claims that they can make it easy for you, the truth is that they won't. But one software that you can trust to fill the important document is Wondershare PDFelement - PDF Editor.

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Its user-friendly form filling function makes completing official forms an easy task. PDFelement can act as a creator and an editor for the PDF documents at a same time.

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Instructions for How to Complete IRS Form 8863

Step 1: Launch PDFelement.

Launch the program, drag and drop the IRS Form 8863 into PDFelement . Before starting to fill the IRS Form 8863, you need to ensure that you are one of the eligible students. To do that, you should be a post-secondary school student. Any full-time student who is still under his or her 24 can participate in the program as long as no one will come out to claim that you are independent. You should only be able to pay half of the expense with your income and should depend on your parent.

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Step 2: Enter Student and Educational Institution Information in Part III

To fill IRS for 8863, it is best for you to start from Part 3. You will start from Line 20, where you will enter the name of the student. Line 21 is for the Student social security number. In the columns 22a and 22 b, you need to enter the details of the educational institution that you are learning. This includes Name of the Institution, Address, Number, Street, Town, City, State and Zip codes etc.

You need answer couple of questions about 1098-T as well.

In line 23, you need to answer the question whether you have claimed the Hope Scholarship Credit or American Opportunity Credit in any of the four years before. If your answer is yes, then you should enter the details of it in the last line, line 31. IN the next few lines as well, you need to answer the right boxes. Be careful with your answer there.

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Step 3: Complete Refundable American Opportunity Credit Details in Part I

Now you can come back to Part I, Refundable American Opportunity Credit. Line 1 to 8 is a series of questions about the income. You need to enter the same amount as in line 30 for question one. Line 2 is for income you have; line 3 is needed to be filled with the exact amount you have entered in line 38 of form 1040. The subtracting amount in line 3 from line 2 will give you the answer of line4.

In case, you have got an answer in line 4 that is equal or more that 15, then you need enter 1.000 in line 6 while if line four is less than line 5, then divide the line 4 by 5 and enter the figure.

Multiplying line 1 with line 6 is the answer of line 7. 40% line 7 is the amount that is to be entered in line 8. We will use the same amount in line 68 of form 1040 and line 44 of form 1040A.

Step 4: Enter Nonrefundable Education Credits Part II

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Nonrefundable Education Credits details are to be entered in part II.

You need to subtract 8 form 7 and enter the value in line 9. Line 10 is to be entered with the same amount as in Part III line 31.

You need to enter amounts in the lines 11 to 19, after doing the calculations accordingly to the instructions given.

Tips and Warnings for IRS Form 8863

If you answer the question from line 27 to 30, then you are expected to leave line 31 as blank.
Any full-time student under 24 and depends on their parent to pay their expense can claim the credit.
Parents with more than one child who are eligible for the credit can claim for each one of them.
You are not allowed to claim both American Opportunity Credit and the Lifetime Learning Credit for the same person
You are ineligible for the credit if you are married or you and your spouse file different returns.
You are ineligible for the credit if you have convicted a felony.

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