This screws up everything. I’ve run the numbers, and it does NOT come out in the wash. We have about $4000 QEE left per semester after the scholarships are credited. Year 1 she went fall and spring and we had two semesters of charges (26K) and one semester of credits (9K). This year she went one semester and cooped the second semester, so we have one semester of charges (13K) and two semesters of credits (18k). TurboTax and Pub 970 say we have to pay tax on the 18k-13k=6k of money as INCOME and we also get NO tax credits for the money we shelled out to pay for spring semester. The credit we got last tax year was the max and would have been even without the charges brought forward for the second semester.
Is there ANYTHING at all I can do? I was mad at the IRS, but really this is all on the school. They are the ones granting the scholarship money and not crediting it until the next calendar year. Since my daughter has to pay tax on that as income, and we get not tax credit, that vastly cheapens the actual amount of aid they are paying.
If anyone has any suggestions, I would be glad to hear them.
Many schools do this on the 1098T. You can either take the charges for the spring in the prior tax year or in the current one, but you can’t take the in both. If for 2013 you did not take spring 2014 charges, then you can bring them forward.
If I go back and take off the charges for Spring 2014, it does not change the amount of tax I owe or the amount of credit I get. Does that mean I don’t have to file an amended return? And can I really just Decide what year to show the charge? I don’t want to claim it twice, but it’s lunacy to file it as reported on the 1098t.
I don’t know anyone who uses the numbers on the 1098t. Print out the bursar’s statement that shows when money was actually applied to the account, look through your own records, and use that information to create your own total for the QEE for the tax year in question.
What matters is when you paid your part of the QEE, not when the school charged for it. Use your records to figure this out, not the 1098T.
See IRS Pub 970 chapter 2 concerning refunds. Last year you should have used $26k of expenses(if you paid spring in December and $18k of scholarships($9k being a refund you received before filing your 2013 return) and had $8k of expenses. If the school charged in December but you paid in January you would have had $13k expenses and $9k scholarships for 2013.
That’s the problem. They charged and I paid (or lose her schedule) for Spring Semester in the previous calendar year (dec), but they credited the scholarship money in the next (actual) year (Jan). It was taken in account in the fall when they sent me the bill for Spring semester, but their bookkeeping (their money, but the way, not an outside scholarship) put it on the account on the first day of classes in the next year.
What is even in it for the school to post the charges like that? My other daughter’s college doesn’t. Do they think there’s any chance I’ll forget this when they come around asking for donations?
My oldest’s school, which also happens to be my employer, does this (drives me nuts). The 1098-T is never right.
There’s no standard, and why a college does what it does is more about the software and billing system than any plan to cheat a family out of a tax credit. We do what @happymomof1 suggested and just hand my accountant the bill and the proof of payments. We ignore the 1098-Ts.
My youngest’s school, by the way, sent a bill in early December, but the official account didn’t list the charges until January. Checked an in fine print the Dec. bill said “estimated.” Different system.
@Catherine57, my son’s school changed the procedure half way through his degree. it ended up that for his last semester, they credited the whole year of scholarships and one semester of tuition. He also started his job right after graduation, so he is in a much higher bracket now.
I thought he had to use the 1098-T. I guess now, unless my son wants to go back and file a corrected return for 2013, he will have to count all the scholarship money shown as 2014.
But I have a question. Turbo Tax asks if I received a 1098 and I said yes, so it told me to enter those numbers. Should I not enter them? Should I just use my own?
@twoinanddone, I really thought we had to use those numbers. @happymomof1 doesn’t know of anyone who uses the numbers on the 1098-T. But I assumed everyone did! When my son’s college changed their method halfway through his degree, I had a friend call with the same questions I had. I know she thought we had to use those numbers.
@twoinanddone - That would be just one of the reasons why I don’t use TurboTax. I couldn’t figure out what they wanted there either.
If you use the paper forms (either in paper or through the IRS’s link at https://www.freefilefillableforms.com/#/fd) you just check the box saying yes you did get a 1098t, and then you use your own numbers.
My taxes are all done, in TurboTax, but I haven’t submitted because of this. I think if I do it then next year my daughter will have to pay a ton in taxes because of the double scholarships (spring and fall) but single tuition billing (fall, or fall and next spring). Sooner or later, it’s going to bite her.
The root of the problem is that there is no benefit to the periods of having two semesters of charges and one semester of scholarships. Zero, zilch. We’re already maxing out the tax benefit receivable for a year in a single semester of payments to the school. Because she is cooping, there will be two years where she gets billed for one semester of school and credited with two semesters of scholarships. Ouch.
it has been said over and over to ignore the 1098T and use your own records and the financial aid award letter. Second the recommendation to do a search - I and others have posted multiple times on this, and some posts include useful links
A scholarship should be allocated to the semester for which it is intended.
Regarding the financial aid letter - If your child’s grants and scholarships are less than the amount of tuition/fees/required books for the whole ACADEMIC YEAR, then all of those scholarships are of the NONtaxable category. (If there are outside scholarships, then they of course need to be added in.) It doesn’t matter when the school chooses to list the scholarships on the (basically worthless) 1098T.
And if you paid unnecessary taxes in previous years due to relying on the 1098T and/or TurboTax’s stupid instructions (or other software), then file amended returns.
Filing an amended return is really not difficult, and you can do it yourself without software. You just indicate which amounts were in error, and write an explanation of those, you do NOT need to re-do the whole 1040.
I did find the way to put in the correct amount on Turbotax. After you put in the number the 1098T supplies (included spring semester) there is an underlined link that says 'What if this number isn’t the tuition charged?" and when you click on it you can write in the correct amount. On the next page, or another place, it asks if any of the scholarship has been reported on the student’s income tax as income, and that’s when you fill in the amount of scholarship you are sliding to qualify for the AOTC. It works because when I entered that I paid half of what the school put on the 1098, my refund amount (as calc by Turbotax) was reduced, but when I entered the amount the child would claim as taxable, my refund expect amount climbed back up (so I’m getting the full credit).
Anyone have an ice pick I can put through my head???
Yes I was helping a friend figure out if his family could claim the AOTC and the 1098T he had included full year tuition and fees amounts (because they were billed in July and December), and first semester grants. He said his parents were going to have an accountant file their taxes and I told him to print out his tuition statement and use it instead because if the accountant would simply subtract grants from tuition/fees amount on 1098T it would be wrong. Also you couldn’t simply divide tuition/fees amount in half because first semester had an extra fee.