Personal Finance

Student Tax Credit Question

  • Last Updated:
  • Mar 14th, 2012 11:45 pm
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Deal Addict
Aug 20, 2008
3215 posts
1264 upvotes
Ajax

Student Tax Credit Question

Hey everyone,

so I am finished school and for the first time ever, I owe the tax man a couple hundred dollars, no big deal. But when searching through tax advise online, I came across something I may have been doing wrong for the past several years.

For the tuition / text book credit, I always claimed that I was a student for 8 months. This is because I was in school January - April and then September - December. But then I came across a post somewhere that say students make this mistake and it should be based on a Calander year, not what months you were in school. So should I have been claiming 12 months instead of 8 for the years where I had 2 semesters? or was I doing things correct?
3 replies
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Jan 27, 2007
5116 posts
984 upvotes
T.
You should claim based on the information on the T2202A issued by the school. The number of months are right on the form.
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Sr. Member
Jun 5, 2007
973 posts
205 upvotes
York
dutchca wrote: You should claim based on the information on the T2202A issued by the school. The number of months are right on the form.

+1

There are also different amounts based on full time or part time studies. Look at your T2202A and it tells you exactly what to enter. Additionally, if you were in a Co-op program it is considered "Not in school"
Sr. Member
Jan 16, 2010
566 posts
123 upvotes
Cjohnson202 wrote: For the tuition / text book credit, I always claimed that I was a student for 8 months. This is because I was in school January - April and then September - December. But then I came across a post somewhere that say students make this mistake and it should be based on a Calander year, not what months you were in school. So should I have been claiming 12 months instead of 8 for the years where I had 2 semesters? or was I doing things correct?
As they said, your T2202A has the correct amount. Most likely, if you did classes in Fall and Spring (without summer classes), the number of months would be 8 full-time (assuming you took enough credits for full-time status - again refer to your T2202A).

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