Form 8917 Tuition and Fees Deduction

Form

8917

OMB No. 1545-0074

Tuition and Fees Deduction

2010

See Instructions.
Attach to Form 1040 or Form 1040A.

Department of the Treasury
Internal Revenue Service

Attachment
Sequence No.
Your social security number

Name(s) shown on return

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CAUTION

60

You cannot take both an education credit from Form 8863 and the tuition and fees deduction from this form for the
same student for the same tax year.

Before you begin:

✔ To see if you qualify for this deduction, see Who Can Take the Deduction in the instructions below.
✔ If you file Form 1040, figure any write-in adjustments to be entered on the dotted line next to Form
1040, line 36. See the 2010 Form 1040 instructions for line 36.

1

(a) Student’s name (as shown on page 1 of your tax return)
First name

2
3
4

5

6

(b) Student’s social security
number (as shown on page
1 of your tax return)

Last name

Add the amounts on line 1, column (c), and enter the total . . . .
Enter the amount from Form 1040, line 22, or Form 1040A, line 15
Enter the total from either:
• Form 1040, lines 23 through 33, plus any write-in adjustments
entered on the dotted line next to Form 1040, line 36, or

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(c) Qualified
expenses (see
instructions)

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3

• Form 1040A, lines 16 through 18. . . . . . . . . . .
4
Subtract line 4 from line 3.* If the result is more than $80,000 ($160,000 if married filing jointly),
stop; you cannot take the deduction for tuition and fees . . . . . . . . . . . . .

5

*If you are filing Form 2555, 2555-EZ, or 4563, or you are excluding income from Puerto Rico,
see Effect of the Amount of Your Income on the Amount of Your Deduction in Pub. 970, chapter
6, to figure the amount to enter on line 5.
Tuition and fees deduction. Is the amount on line 5 more than $65,000 ($130,000 if married
filing jointly)?
Yes. Enter the smaller of line 2, or $2,000.

}

. . . . . .
No. Enter the smaller of line 2, or $4,000.
Also enter this amount on Form 1040, line 34, or Form 1040A, line 19.
Section references are to the Internal Revenue Code unless
otherwise noted.

General Instructions
Purpose of Form
Use Form 8917 to figure and take the deduction for tuition and
fees expenses paid in 2010.
This deduction is based on qualified education expenses
paid to an eligible postsecondary educational institution. See
What Expenses Qualify, on page 2, for more information.
You may be able to take the American opportunity
or lifetime learning credit for your education
TIP credit
expenses instead of the tuition and fees deduction.
Figure your tax both ways and choose the one that
gives you the lower tax. See Form 8863, Education Credits, and
Pub. 970, Tax Benefits for Education, for more information about
these credits.

Who Can Take the Deduction
You may be able to take the deduction if you, your spouse, or
a dependent you claim on your tax return was a student
enrolled at or attending an eligible educational institution. The
deduction is based on the amount of qualified education
expenses you paid for the student in 2010 for academic
periods beginning in 2010 and the first 3 months of 2011.
For Paperwork Reduction Act Notice, see your tax return instructions.

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Qualified education expenses must be reduced by
any expenses paid directly or indirectly using
tax-free educational assistance. See Tax-free
CAUTION educational assistance and refunds of qualified
education expenses on page 2.

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Generally, in order to claim the deduction for qualified
education expenses for a dependent, you must have paid the
expenses in 2010 and must claim an exemption for the
student as a dependent on your 2010 tax return (line 6c of
Form 1040 or 1040A). For additional information, see chapter
6 of Pub. 970.
You cannot claim the tuition and fees deduction if any of the
following apply.
• Your filing status is married filing separately.
• Another person can claim an exemption for you as a
dependent on his or her tax return. You cannot take the
deduction even if the other person does not actually claim
that exemption.
• Your modified adjusted gross income (MAGI), as figured on
line 5, is more than $80,000 ($160,000 if filing a joint return).
• You were a nonresident alien for any part of the year and
did not elect to be treated as a resident alien for tax purposes.
More information on nonresident aliens can be found in Pub.
519, U.S. Tax Guide for Aliens.

Cat. No. 37728P

Form 8917 (2010)

Page 2

Form 8917 (2010)

• You or anyone else claims an American opportunity
or lifetime learning credit (Form 8863) in 2010 with respect to
expenses of the student for whom the qualified education
expenses were paid. However, a state tax credit will not
disqualify you from claiming a tuition and fees deduction.

which your tuition and fees deduction would have been reduced
if the refund or tax-free assistance had been received in the year
for which you claimed the tuition and fees deduction. Include
that amount as additional income for the year the refund or taxfree assistance was received.

What Expenses Qualify

Example. You paid $8,000 tuition and fees in December
2009, and your child began college in January 2010. You filed
your 2009 tax return on February 7, 2010, and claimed a tuition
and fees deduction of $4,000. After you filed your return, your
child dropped two courses and you received a refund of $5,600.
You must refigure your 2009 tuition and fees deduction using
$2,400 of qualified expenses instead of $8,000. The refigured
deduction is $2,400. You must include the difference of $1,600
on your 2010 Form 1040, line 21. You cannot file Form 1040A.

Qualified education expenses. Generally, qualified
education expenses are amounts paid in 2010 for tuition and
fees required for the student’s enrollment or attendance at an
eligible educational institution. It does not matter whether the
expenses were paid in cash, by check, by credit card, or
with borrowed funds.
Qualified education expenses do not include amounts paid
for:
• Room and board, insurance, medical expenses (including
student health fees), transportation, or other similar personal,
living, or family expenses.
• Course-related books, supplies, equipment, and
nonacademic activities, except for fees and expenses
required to be paid to the institution as a condition of
enrollment or attendance.
• Any course or other education involving sports, games, or
hobbies, or any noncredit course, unless such course or
other education is part of the student’s degree program.
You should receive Form 1098-T, Tuition Statement, from
the college or university reporting either payments received in
2010 (box 1) or amounts billed in 2010 (box 2). However, the
amounts in box 1 or 2 of Form 1098-T may be different from
what you actually paid. On Form 8917, line 1, enter only the
amounts you paid in 2010 for qualified expenses.
If you or the student takes a deduction for higher education
expenses, such as on Schedule A or Schedule C (Form
1040), you cannot use those expenses when figuring your
tuition and fees deduction.
You cannot take a tuition and fees deduction for qualified
higher education expenses used to figure the exclusion from
gross income of (a) interest received under an education
savings bond program, or (b) distributions from a Coverdell
education savings account (ESA) or qualified tuition program
(QTP).
Eligible educational institution. An eligible educational
institution is any college, university, vocational school, or
other postsecondary educational institution eligible to
participate in a student aid program administered by the
Department of Education. It includes virtually all accredited
public, nonprofit, and proprietary (privately owned profit-making)
postsecondary institutions. The educational institution should be
able to tell you if it is an eligible educational institution.
Certain educational institutions located outside the United
States also participate in the U.S. Department of Education’s
Federal Student Aid (FSA) programs.
Tax-free educational assistance and refunds of qualified
education expenses. Tax-free educational assistance
includes a tax-free scholarship or Pell grant or tax-free
employer-provided educational assistance. See Pub. 970,
chapter 6, for specific information.
You must reduce the total of your qualified education
expenses by any tax-free educational assistance and by any
refunds of your expenses. If the refund or tax-free assistance
is received in the same year in which the expenses were paid or
in the following year before you file your tax return, simply
reduce your qualified education expenses by the amount
received and figure your tuition and fees deduction using the
reduced amount of qualified expenses. If the refund or tax-free
assistance is received after you file your return for the year in
which the expenses were paid, you must figure the amount by

Who Is an Eligible Student
For purposes of the tuition and fees deduction, an eligible
student is a student who was enrolled in one or more courses
at an eligible educational institution (as defined under Qualified
education expenses, earlier). The student must have either
a high school diploma or a General Educational Development
(GED) credential.

More Information
See Pub. 970, chapter 6, for more information about this
deduction.

Specific Instructions
Line 1
Complete columns (a) through (c) on line 1 for each student
who qualifies for and for whom you elect to take the tuition
and fees deduction.
Note. If you have more than three students who qualify for the
tuition and fees deduction, enter “See attached” next to line 1
and attach a statement with the required information for each
additional student. Include the amounts from line 1, column (c),
for all students in the total you enter on line 2.

Column (c)
For each student, enter the amount of qualified education
expenses remaining after reduction by certain tax-free
amounts and refunds, as explained earlier. The expenses must
have been paid for the student in 2010 for academic periods
beginning after 2009 but before April 1, 2011.
You can use the worksheet that follows to figure the
correct amount to enter in column (c).
Qualified Education Expenses Worksheet for Column (c)
(Do a separate worksheet for each student)
1. Total qualified education expenses .

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3. Total adjustments (add lines 2a through 2c) .

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2. Less adjustments:
a. Tax-free educational assistance .
b. Refunds of qualified education
expenses . . . . . . . .

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c. Other adjustments (see Pub. 970,
chapter 6) . . . . . . . . .

4. Qualified education expenses (subtract line 3
from line 1). Enter here and on Form 8917,
line 1, column (c)
. . . . . . . .