Hoping someone can help me with this involved question. My oldest daughter graduated college in May 2015. We claimed the AOTC for four years 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014. She did not receive a 1098-T for 2015 because all expenses had been reported on those previous years’ 1098-Ts. But in 2015 we used funds from a 529 to pay for spring '15 tuition and we received a 1099-Q. Do we have to pay taxes on the money we used because we don’t have a 1098-T that reports the expense? I’m thinking that we may not have handled this correctly these past four years and don’t want to make the same mistake with my second daughter who is in her freshman year of college. Thank you!
You could say the paid educational expenses were billed in previous year.
No, you don’t owe taxes on the earnings portion of the 2015 529 distribution. Have you already looked at the Lifetime Learning Credit to see if you are eligible to take this on your 2015 taxes for your graduated daughter?
I thought that since all of her four years of college expenses had been used to claim the AOTC for four years, we were not eligible to use those expenses towards another tax credit? I thought that would be double dipping…But if that is allowed, we would do that!
She has five (tax) years of college expenses, and using the LLC for tax year 2015 would not be double dipping. Be advised, the same coordination rule with 529 and other tax-advantaged paid expenses applies, and the LLC is not as generous as the AOTC. But if you qualify, it’s better than a sharp stick in the eye.
So even though her spring 2015 expenses were reported on the 2014 1098-T and on my 2014 tax return, I can do that?! Great!! So would I just determine the total qualified expenses for the spring semester and enter that into my 2015 tax software as if I did receive a 1098-T?
We receive no 1098-T from school last year as the total amount of scholarship and grant exceeded tuition (which is the school policy). However, we were still able to claim the tax credit by re-allocating the grant for R&B and reported it as income.
Well, if you paid spring 2015 expenses in 2014 and used those expenses for figuring the AOTC on your 2014 tax return, you can’t use those expenses for anything on 2015 taxes. But in your first post you said that in 2015 you “used funds from a 529 to pay for spring '15 tuition.” So it’s unclear to me whether the spring 2015 expenses were paid in 2014 or 2015 (maybe the expenses were split between the two years?).
Sorry if I was unclear! We paid spring 2015 tuition in 2015. But the 2014 1098-T that we received (in January of 2015) included the expenses for the entire school year (fall 2014 and spring 2015) This is what we used to claim the AOTC for 2014. We used 529 funds in January 2015 to pay for spring 2015 tuition. I hope that clarifies it!
You can’t claim the AOTC using any expenses paid in future tax years. In other words, your 2014 AOTC claim should not have been based on any expenses that you actually paid in 2015. You could have used expenses that were paid in 2014 for an academic period beginning in the first three months of 2015, but it doesn’t sound like you did that. It doesn’t matter if the 2014 1098-T reported all of the 2014-2015 expenses incurred, what matters is when those expenses were paid. If there were non-tax advantaged payments made in 2015, you can use those payments to claim the LLC for tax year 2015, assuming you qualify in all other regards for the credit.
So it does appear we have been doing this incorrectly for the past four years. I always just used the numbers on the 1098-T, and didn’t adjust for what year the payments were made. By "non-tax advantaged payments’ do you mean NOT using funds from 529? Because the 529 $ that we used was a small portion of what the total was that we paid. Would we take the total paid and subtract the 529 $ and use that figure for the LLC? Thanks again.
Yes. If the school billed $20k for spring 2015 tuition/fees/room/board and books for the semester cost $500, and $20,500 was withdrawn from the 529 in January 2015 to pay those expenses, than you have nothing to claim the LLC on. On the other hand, if you used $10,500 or less in 529 money, then you would be eligible for the full LLC (20% credit on the first $10,000 in QEE).