<p>My son is in his second year of college. The 1098 form for 2010 just had box 2 filled with the tuition amount, and box 5 with the scholarship amount. The form for 2011 has box 2 filled with the tuition amount ($10,333), no scholarship this year (all just for freshman year), but suddenly box 10 has an amount of $7067.97 in it...We paid all the tuition ourselves, and I don't understand the explanation on the sheet about reimbursements or refunds made by an insurer. Does anyone understand this box 10?</p>
<p>Don’t forget that the IRS deals with a calendar year and not a school year. Spring of freshman year and fall of second/sophomore year will be in the same tax year. Therefore if he had a scholarship second semester freshman year … (don’t have the form or know the box #s).</p>
<p>I just found out this morning that the box 10 amount was an error on the part of the university, and they are reissuing the forms. Phew!</p>
<p>It is not uncommon for the 1098T to be incorrect. I always recommend to parent to review bursars statements and verify.</p>
<p>^ MizzBee is being kind. It is COMMON for the 1098T to be incorrect. There have been several threads in past years discussing this issue.</p>
<p>As far as I can figure out, the 1098T is one of the more useless pieces of paper ever generated. Why the IRS couldn’t do a better job specifying what should/shouldn’t be included in each box is one of the great unknowns. I wouldn’t trust it at all. </p>
<p>Which is too bad. Because something that told you how much of the college’s fees were allowable expenses reported in the proper year for the purposes of the tax credits would actually have been really useful.</p>
<p>The form will be for the tax year, not the school year. The school reports to meet IRS rules, not their schedule.</p>
<p>With two kids in college have now received 1098T reported in various ways for virtually identical freshman year…school will report according to how they allocated funds in the calendar year, not the tax year. You will need the report detail to break out the numbers and turn this into useful information that relates to the tax year in question.</p>
<p>Have found in previous years that tax preparers are not all equally well versed on what should be done with the information from these forms. I have now printed out the appropriate information from IRS and highlighted the necessary portions to make my life easier. Basically, I have to figure everything out for the tax people and then pay them to plug in the numbers…</p>
<p>All of this makes me glad that undergrad is only 4 years long and then kids in question can do their own taxes!</p>