Education Tax Credit/Deduction Question

If either of you are eligible for the American Opportunity Tax Credit, that one is per student.

The lifetime learning credit and the tuition and fees deduction are per return.

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Can we claim a Lifetime Learning Credit and then a separate tuition and fee deduction for the other student?

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You can have one spouse claim the LLC for that spouses expenses and the other spouse claim tuition and fees expense for that spouse's expenses. There are some AGI limitations. And you can't claim an LLC and a tuition and fees deduction for the SAME student, even if you come under the amounts.

So let's say each spouse has 20K in expenses, then one can use their 20K to establish the lifetime credit and the other can use their 20K to establish tuition and fees deduction.

But if one spouse had 30K in expenses and the other had 1K, you could not claim a small lifetime learning credit for the 1K, and then claim a lifetime learning credit for the 30K up to the amount of lifetime learning credit available, and then use additional parts of the 30K to claim a tuition and fees deduction.

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Has the tuition and fees deduction been phased out for the 2014 tax year? I've seen conflicting reports on that.

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It had expired at the end of 2013, however, it was extended for an additional year (2014) in the recently signed package of tax extenders. So it is good for 2014. However, at this point, it has not been approved for years past 2014.