So my parents and I filed our taxes as Married-Filed Joint Return. I filed my 1098-T form too, for scholarships or grants too ($2888), but now I’m confused on what to put on my FAFSA when it asks me “College grant and scholarship AID reported to the IRS”
I’m just confused because it’s asking me the amount to put in there
That question is asking about taxable college grant and scholarship aid reported to the IRS in either the parents’ or student’s adjusted gross income. This would happen if either a parent in college or the student has grants and/or scholarships that exceed QEE for the year.
Are you saying that your parents filed a return as Married Filing Jointly, and you also filed a return as Married Filing Jointly? Please clarify.
You don’t “file” a 1098-T. It’s strictly an informational form.
No just my parents
You will have to look at your billing statements from your university for all expenses that were paid in 2015.
Add up all tuition and fees, add book expenses, that’s your qualified education expenses.
Then add up all scholarships, grants that were credited to your student account in 2015.
(The 1098T should also list tuition and fees billed, but might not show correctly what was actually paid).
If scholarships and grants were more than tuition, fees, books then report the taxable scholarships on your own tax return on line 7 of 1040 A with SCH written to left of line 7.
That means you are including the taxable scholarships in your AGI.
Then in the FAFSA in student section you put the amount of taxable scholarships that you included in AGI where it asks for it, I think question 44d.
If the tuition, fees and books were more than scholarships and grants, then you have no taxable scholarships, nothing to report on your tax return for taxable scholarships or in question 44d.
Your parents can then see if they can qualify for American Opportunity tax credit for those tuition, fees, book expenses that were more than scholarships and grants.
On the FAFSA it asks for education credit in parent section question 93a. You put the non-refundable part of AOTC in that field, which is listed on line 50 of their form 1040 or line 33 form 1040A