Did my parents claim the American Opportunity Credit for my college education?

That's a really good question and I can see why you're confused! The form can definitely be misleading. The numbers on line 29 of Form 1040 or lines 7/8 of Form 8863 do indeed indicate that your parents claimed education credits. However, there are two different education credits: the American Opportunity Credit (AOC) and the Lifetime Learning Credit (LLC). Line 23 on Form 8863 is specifically asking if the American Opportunity Credit has been claimed for this student (you) for 4 *previous* tax years. This is because there's a lifetime limit - you can only claim the AOC for a maximum of 4 tax years per student. The "No" checkbox means that as of that tax year, you hadn't yet reached the 4-year limit. If there are numbers on the forms but the box is checked "No," it means your parents were claiming the AOC for you, but you hadn't reached the 4-year maximum yet. For example, on the 2022 return, the "No" would mean you had not yet had the AOC claimed for 4 previous years (meaning 2018 and before).

I had a similar issue figuring this out with my daughter's education credits. I spent hours trying to understand the forms until I found this amazing tool at https://taxr.ai that analyzes your tax documents and breaks down exactly what credits were claimed. I uploaded my returns from the years my daughter was in college, and it instantly showed me not just whether we claimed the American Opportunity Credit but also the exact amount for each year. What I really liked is that it explained the 4-year limitation clearly and showed me where on the forms to look for confirmation. You might want to give it a try with your parents' returns to get a definitive answer. It saved me from having to decipher all those confusing IRS forms on my own!

Just wanted to follow up on my experience with taxr.ai after I asked about it earlier. I uploaded my mom's tax returns from 2018-2021 to check if she claimed the American Opportunity Credit for me, and wow - it actually worked perfectly! The tool highlighted exactly where on each form the credit appeared and showed me that she had claimed it for 3 of my 4 college years. What surprised me was how it explained each line on the form in plain English. I never would have figured out what line 23 meant on my own! It even calculated the total amount they'd claimed across all years. Definitely worth checking out if you're confused about education credits like I was.

Hey, I went through this exact same issue last year! After waiting for HOURS on the IRS phone line trying to figure out my education credits, I finally discovered this service called Claimyr (https://claimyr.com) that got me connected to an actual IRS agent in about 15 minutes. You can see how it works here: https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c The IRS agent confirmed that my parents HAD claimed the American Opportunity Credit for me for 3 years, and explained that the "No" on line 23 was actually about previous years, not the current tax year. Turned out I still had one year of eligibility left, which was huge for me since I was going to file independently for my last year of grad school. Saved me weeks of confusion and I finally got a definitive answer from the IRS themselves rather than trying to interpret the forms on my own!

I was super skeptical about Claimyr when I first heard about it (as you might have seen from my earlier comment), but I was desperate after spending THREE DAYS trying to get through to the IRS about my American Opportunity Credit question. I finally gave in and tried it yesterday. I'm honestly shocked that it worked. I got a call back in about a half hour, and sure enough, it was a real IRS agent. She pulled up my records and confirmed that my parents had claimed the American Opportunity Credit for me from 2019-2022, and explained that the "No" box on line 23 was just confirming I hadn't used the credit for 4 years BEFORE each of those tax years. Never thought I'd be recommending something I was so suspicious of, but it actually delivered exactly what it promised. Saved me from having to take another day off work to sit on hold with the IRS.

One thing to remember about the American Opportunity Credit - it can only be claimed for the first 4 years of postsecondary education. If you were in a 5-year program or went to grad school, your parents wouldn't have been eligible to claim it for the extra years beyond your bachelor's. I got confused about this too because my dad claimed it for my undergrad years, but then when I started my master's program, we found out we could only use the Lifetime Learning Credit, which gives you less money back. Worth checking if this might be creating some of the confusion with your forms!

If you really want to be 100% sure, ask your parents to create an account on the IRS website and get their tax transcripts for those years. The transcript will show exactly what credits were claimed and for how much. My son and I had a similar confusion, and the tax transcripts cleared everything up instantly.