 Sometimes they talk about these these people income thresholds that are quite high, you know, it's like well if someone's making like $400,000 why do we need to wipe out their loan or something, you know But so it's a kind of an interesting dynamic on the loans with regards to the policy and again I don't know the answers what you should do for you personally given the structure of the policy should you hang on to Even though it would be more beneficial to consolidate them because you think the the government's gonna wipe out the loans in the future Should you should you actually structure your thought process on on your political your political leanings based on the fact that you want to get Your student loan paid off, you know, I know that's I don't know So you or your spouse of filing jointly art claimed as a dependent on someone else's such as your parents 2022 return. So don't include any amount paid from a distribution of earnings made from a qualified tuition program That's a QTP after 2018 to the extent the earnings are treated as tax-free because they were used to pay student loan interest So use the worksheet and these instructions to figure your student loan deduction So you can check out the worksheet if you so choose obviously tax software will be helpful in practice to be determining These of the amount of the deduction on the interest the thing that you want to understand in your mind is basically yeah I should get documentation on the student loan interest typically It should be fairly easy to do the data input on and if your income is above a certain threshold Then you might have a phase out in terms of the student loan interest that you're gonna be able to deduct It is an above-the-line deduction not an itemized deduction So if you're not phasing out you should get a benefit from it because you don't have to clear the standard deduction in order to Get it. So exception use publication 970 instead of the worksheet and these instructions to figure your student loan interest deduction If you file form 2555 or 4563 or you exclude income from sources within Puerto Rico Qualified student loan a qualified student loan is any loan You took out to pay the qualified higher Education expenses for any of the following individuals who were eligible students number one Yourself or your spouse that one seems fairly obvious So you took out a loan for yourself or your spouse because you're one entity for taxes and And now you're paying back the interest on it So the the interest portion might be deductible remember remember not the whole payment not the whole payment is deductible Just the interest poorment portion the chart the part they charged For for the use of the money the purchasing power the renting of the money to any person who was your dependent When the loan was taken out three any person you could have claimed as a dependent for the year The loan was taken out except that a the person filed the joint return B The person had gross income that was equal to or more than the exemption amount for that year or $4,400 for 2022 or you or your spouse filing jointly could claim as a dependent on someone else's return. So Generally, the concept would be if it's someone on your return you your spouse You're dependent then you would think and the education expenses were related to them Then you would think you'd get the deduction and then you've got number three Which is this weird area where they might not be claimed as a dependent But you've got but they're still going to qualify because of either a B or C However a loan isn't a qualified student loan if a any of the proceeds were used for other purposes or B The loan was from either a related person or a person who borrowed the proceeds Under a qualified employer plan or a contract purchased under such a plan for detail C publication 970 so I think this is mostly the case for many many people in the college town, right? They actually didn't spend the money on the education. They spent it on like beer and or whatever But you know so so in that case then you know I and again obviously if if there's an incentive that there's student loan money out there and The idea would be that you they might just wipe out the student loan money going forward That will probably leave to people trying to scam student loan money and spend it Maybe even not on staff on student loans, right? So so again that I think the incentive structures We got to kind of be careful on them. Although I can understand Wanting the student loans to be To be wiped out and whatnot which might in a case qualified higher education expenses qualified higher education expenses Generally include tuition fees room and board and related expenses such as books and supplies Which you got to spend the money on in order for the loan to be a legit loan now Note that when we talk about these education things, we've got the hope credit We've got this qualified tuition that we talked about. There's there's different areas We talked about like the the well any case There's different areas where you have this this idea of what you need to spend the money on to qualify for education type of things and sometimes they're different if you're talking about like the student interest Versus like like a grant or something. Do I have to include that in an income? Versus like the hope and lifetime credits, which are credits for higher education So you can't you sometimes you get those things kind of muddied up in your mind You say I you know all all those rules are the same if it's qualified higher education expenses Room and board and the books and whatnot and the tuition will sometimes those things aren't all the same Right, so you got to make sure that you're applying the money what you're spending the money on to the proper area for the student education Component that you're looking at whether that be the student loan here Or whether that be the hope lifetime credit and whatnot So the expenses must be for education in a degree certificate or similar program at an eligible educational institution an eligible educational institution includes most colleges universities and certain Vocational schools for detail see publication 970