Hello,

I am a 21 year old college student in my final year of school. For the past 3 years, I have been filing as a dependent to my mother on taxes for FAFSA, and won't need to apply for it this year. My mom is saying I still need to file as a dependent and is pressuring me to do so, however, I don't live with her and haven't lived with her for a year and know that will be a huge blow to her tax return. She has my 1098t forms from my school and says she needs to file it with her taxes and that I also have to be under her taxes for that reason.

The university even told me that I can file as independent and would certainly prefer to do so in order to use whatever I get back to help me start paying the school back.

My questions are: 1) can I file as independent this year? 2) how can I prove this to my mom? 3) what do I do if she already filed for taxes claim me as her dependent? Appreciate the help!