@Madison85 Yep, always. Last year they didn’t include some but it didn’t matter cause the amount wasn’t high enough to file the return. It is for 2015, though, so I’m concerned they’ll do the same.
@twoinanddone
I’ve been told to include as deposited. so if I cashed in a check/got a direct deposit during 2015, that’s what I include. plus whatever went directly to the school. is that correct? thanks.
The three outside scholarships my D got that were issued to the school or her, were reported and paid to the school. So they show up in her account statements. So I would assume they would show up on the 1098T under scholarships? She had another small book scholarship and we reported that but cashed it. This I will deduct from the book expenses before I report them for QEE.
This will not be an issue for tax year 2016 though because her outside scholarships were only one-time awards.
Effective for expenses paid after Dec. 31, 2015 for education furnished in academic periods starting after that date, schools will be required to report only qualified tuition and related expenses actually paid on the Form 1098-T, Tuition Statement.
Currently, the schools could choose between amounts paid and amounts billed.
Great info!
Well, then I guess there is a hope that the 1098T will finally be something other than a junk informational return. No clue why they allowed schools to be so loosey-goosey with reporting when expenses are paid.
Big challenge very quickly (as in January, for many families): Telling colleges what charges a specific payment or loan proceed is to match. Many merit scholarships are issued “in an amount equal to half tuition” – which is not the same as a half-tuition scholarship. In many cases, the family is better off by allowing school grant money to apply to room & board so that family/loan funds are applied to tuition and mandatory fees.
So the credit is claimed on tuition and mandatory fees, but the grant money on room & board is taxed?
@purpleacorn I did use part of the grant money for my D’s R&B so that I can have at least $4000 out of pocket cost on Tuition/Fee to claim the tax credit. For that part of grant money, it is considered taxable income but it is within her tax exemption/deductible that she still did not need to pay tax on that.
I don’t see where it matters. You can consider the scholarship for room and board and it’s taxable to student. The school can apply the scholarship to tuition, but you can declare some of that ‘taxable’ and take the credit. It doesn’t matter. I wasn’t given a choice on how the school applied it, I just did it on the tax forms.
No clue why they allowed schools to be so loosey-goosey with reporting when expenses are paid.
Schools are just following the rules the IRS made. I coordinate 1098-T reporting for my school, and it s**ks, Many schools are like mine, small enough to not have any tax experts … but required to be tax experts. Sure, we have a company that prepares our statements … but we provide all the info, so we are supposed to know what to do. I didn’t even know that the reporting rules had changed (but fortunately am in compliance).
You have no idea how tired I am of rules and compliance … retirement will not come soon enough.
In our case the school did report the outside scholarships on the 1098T.
I am a bit worried about reporting changing in 2016 to actual amounts paid. Since we have a full tuition scholarship will they then only list the qualified fees in box 1 (since that is essentially all we really “paid”)?
Or will they list tuition and fees in box 1 and then report tuition scholarship like they are doing now? (Except tuition and fees is reported in box 2 instead)?
I guess I will find out next year.
Yes, we will find out more next year, but I suspect that the 1098T will still not show many of the Qualified Expenses paid by a student, like books, lab supplies, a computer, etc.
And it will still be up to the student/parents to decide whether a portion of the scholarship is applied to R&B, and is taxable to the student, so the parents will get the AOTC.
I don’t see how the new 1098T will fix this. It will still be a complex mess that drives parents nuts at tax time.
I do not expect book expenses to be listed on 1098T, they do not get paid to the school.
Computers are not qualified expenses for AOTC as far as I know (unless required by the school as condition of attendance).
Everything was correctly reported on our form as far as tuition, fees and scholarships go.
How the scholarships are allocated are up the the taxpayer to determine, if there is flexibility. We only claim books and fees for AOTC because of the tuition scholarship
I actually received the 1098-T this year as the scholarship plus grant is just a little bit lower than the tuition plus fees this year due to the upperclassmen rate and a couple external scholarships not renewed.