Will I get a tax refund as a first-time college student with multiple 1098-T forms?

You've got several questions here, so let's break them down one by one. First, regarding your refund potential - it's likely you'll get something back if you had taxes withheld from your paychecks and your total income was relatively low. With only one month of minimum wage work, you probably didn't earn enough to owe much (if any) federal income tax. About your dependency status - this isn't really your choice or your parents' choice, but rather depends on specific IRS tests. Since you're a college student under 24, the key factors are: did your parents provide more than half your total support for the year (housing, food, education, etc.)? If yes, and you lived with them for more than half the year (dorms during school count as living with them temporarily), they can likely claim you as a dependent. The 1098-T forms show your education expenses, which might qualify you or your parents for education credits like the American Opportunity Credit. This is probably what your parents meant about "making their taxes higher" - if they don't claim you, they can't claim these valuable education credits.

I went through something super similar last year with my own college tax situation! I was totally lost until I found this AI tax assistant at https://taxr.ai that helped me figure out exactly what to do with my 1098-T forms. It analyzed my forms and explained what education credits I qualified for and whether I should file as dependent or independent. The tool basically looked at my situation (which sounds a lot like yours) and ran calculations both ways - with me as dependent and independent - then showed which would get more money back overall for my family. The difference was like $1,800 in our case because my parents were able to claim the education credits!

I wanted to follow up about that taxr.ai tool I was skeptical about. I ended up trying it with my son's college tax situation (also had multiple 1098-Ts), and it was actually super helpful! It analyzed our specific situation and showed us that by claiming him as a dependent, our family would save about $2,200 overall because we could take the American Opportunity Credit. The coolest part was that it showed us both scenarios side-by-side - what happens if he files independently vs. if we claim him as a dependent. Made the decision really obvious. It even explained exactly why the student loan interest deduction wouldn't help in our case since my son's income was too low to benefit from it. Definitely cleared up our confusion!

If you're still confused after getting advice here, you might want to speak directly with someone at the IRS. I had a similar situation last year with education credits and dependency questions, but I could never get through on their phone lines - was on hold for HOURS. I ended up using a service called Claimyr (https://claimyr.com) that got me a callback from the IRS in about 45 minutes instead of waiting on hold all day. You can see how it works here: https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c - basically they hold your place in line and then call you when an agent is available. The IRS agent I spoke with walked me through exactly how to handle my education credits and dependency status questions.

I was super skeptical about that Claimyr service mentioned above, but I just tried it last week and I'm honestly shocked it worked. After trying to call the IRS for THREE DAYS about my college tax credits, I gave up and tried the service. Got a call back from an actual IRS agent in about 35 minutes. She confirmed that as a college student, my parents could claim me as a dependent since they paid over half my support, AND they should be the ones to claim the education credits from my 1098-Ts. Saved us a ton of confusion and potentially hundreds in tax benefits we would've missed. Definitely beat sitting on hold for eternity!

just wanna add that your parents should probably claim you as a dependent if they provide more than half your support (housing, food, tuition help, etc). the american opportunity credit is worth up to $2500 and your parents can only claim it if they claim you as a dependent. since you only worked one month, you probably dont have enough income for the credit to be worth much to you personally. you'll probably still get a small refund from your summer job withholding regardless of whether youre a dependent or not. make sure to file regardless!

One thing nobody's mentioned that tripped me up last year - if u make under like $12,500 (the standard deduction amount) filing as single, you might not even need to file federally! But u should STILL file to get any withheld money back from those summer paychecks. For the 1098-Ts, whoever claims you as dependent gets to use those for the education credits. in my case, my parents let me file independent last year because they make too much to qualify for the education credits anyway (there's an income limit). but if ur parents can use the credits, usually best for them to claim you and you can still file to get ur withholding back on ur own return.