There are two tax credits available to help you offset the costs of higher education by reducing the amount of your income tax. They are the
Hope credit and the lifetime learning credit, also referred to as education credits.
Can you claim both education credits this year?
For each student, you can elect for any year only one of the credits. For example, if you elect to take the lifetime learning credit for a child
on your 2004 tax return, you cannot, for that same child, also claim the Hope credit for 2004. If you are eligible to claim the lifetime learning
credit and you are also eligible to claim the Hope credit for the same student in the same year, you can choose to claim either credit, but not
both. For 2004, if the total qualified education expenses for a student are more than $7,500, it will generally be to your benefit to claim the
lifetime learning credit. If you pay qualified education expenses for more than one student in the same year, you can choose to take credits
on a per-student, per-year basis. This means that, for example, you can claim the Hope credit for one student and the lifetime learning
credit for another student in the same year.
These are just some of the rules or information obtained from irs publications for the Hope
Credit and the Lifetime Learning Credit for the complete rules and guidelines either contact
the IRS directly or make an appointment to have your income tax return done with us
Lifetime Learning Credit. The Hope Credit
