<prompt> Human: Im just looking for some guidance on what I should do. Im 19 and during 2015 I lived on my own the entire year minus maybe a week I stayed at my parents. I recently filed my taxes and I received a decent refund since Im currently a student. I did some reading on my own and since I provide for everything myself minus a cellphone bill but my parents want to claim me as a dependent saying that since one of the students loans I took out was under their name its a fafsa parent plus loan they can claim me as a dependent. Am I right to file and claim myself or should I let my parents claim me. They said that the education credit would benefit them more than me but I have already received my refund and spent it paying off my credit card debt, so I know Ill have to pay it back if I do let them claim me. If Im claimed myself correctly can anyone give me a source to show my parents.Tl;dr - Im 19, I claimed myself as a dependent, already received and spent my return. My parents want to now claim me as a dependent even though I dont live with them nor do they provide much for me so they can get the education credit.edit- I probably should of added this information to the main post earlier so I wont have to repeat myself so much. My parents pay for my health insurance, phone bill and got a parent plus loan of 7k that went towards school. I live on my one and its not in any university housing. Also I got in touch with the tax lady my parents were talking to, I think they misunderstood what she said from our conversation. Assistant: Work through the qualifying child and qualifying relative rules with them, from Pub 17If youre a full time student under 24 sounds like yes AND you lived with them except for temporary absences and school counts as a temporary absence, so if you use their house as a base when you are not in school then that counts as living at home for more than half the year THEN you are their dependent if you have notedit provided more than half your support. You should use a worksheet like this one to determine whether you did or not, because education expenses are included, and if they are extremely high like some are, then they can be a big factor in determining dependency.If you didnt live with them for more than half the year you move onto the Qualifying Relative rules, and you are their dependent only if you made less than 4000 in gross income and if you got a scholarship that may count AND they provided more than half you support.edit: have not correctionHuman: No I have had my own place since January of 2015 and I stayed with them for about 1 week during that time but I live about 2 hours away from them and I dont visit them that often and when I do its rare if I stay the night. Also I have a full time job that pays for my bills, the only thing they pay for me is a phone bill.Assistant: Not living with them means youre not their qualifying child, and if your job pays more than 4000 youre not their qualifying relative, so it is pretty clear cut for you. Show your parents the rules from the Pub 17 link and hopefully they will see they are not allowed to claim you.To make peace you could find out how much you got in education credits in your return and offer to give that much of your refund to them, or give them half of the credit or something, but they are not allowed to claim you so are not entitled to your education credits.Human: I did, they said that I should trust their tax lady who apparent have been doing taxes for 20 over bullshit I find online  <response>: My parents tried to do the same thing when I was younger. I told them they were welcome to file however they like and let the IRS sort it out if they found a problem.They stopped claiming me as a dependent. 