My daughter made 8000 earned income last year. She is a full time student. She also had excess scholarship money (from merit based scholarship, tuition reduction - parent teacher reduction, and income based need)totaling around 4000. This is after qualified expenses. Rest or money used for travel, food, while in school. Parent mother made 32000 before deductions taxes. Mother usually claims daughter as dependent on tax return. Daughter will file this year. Will she gave to pay taxes on excess scholarship money? Will this affect future financial aid from school?
The best place to ask this question would be in the Financial Aid Forum. Go to the main page where all the forums are listed, and scroll down to find it.
Yes, she will owe taxes on the excess scholarship money. Run the taxes both ways to see if it works out better to claim her on your taxes or not. Whether this affects her aid for next year will depend on her school’s policy. She should have a chat with them.
You don’t get a choice whether to claim her or not. You have to run the support test and see if you can. If you can and don’t she still can’t claim her own exemption.
Given what you’ve said she will have to pay tax on her scholarships/grants. The taxable scholarship/grant part won’t hurt her federal financial aid by itself. Fafsa asks questions about that and also about income from need-based employment that are subtracted out in the fafsa formula. I’m not sure how schools typically handle this income for their own financial aid.
The details about taxable scholarships/grants are in chapter 1 of IRS Pub 970:
http://www.irs.ustreas.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p970.pdf
There’s a lot of information in this recent thread:
Thank you annoying dad. I figured she would have to pay taxes. she and her fiancé are living with me and I pay all the bills. I was hoping to count her for that reason alone. Guess we’ll just haven’t wait and find out.
Read IRS Publication 970 regarding the AOTC.
Another question: daughter get a fee reduction due to her stepmother being a teacher in the state. Are tuition reductions taxable? I’ve read in its website and there are exceptions…,
We were unable to take any tax credits because daughter has not had to pay any out of pocket.
Did you read Publication 970?
http://www.irs.gov/publications/p970/ch02.html
See *Coordination with Pell grants and other scholarships *
I’ve read 970 multiple times
You don’t necessarily have to pay out of pocket to get AOTC.
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-utl/Pell%20AOTC%204%20pager.pdf
Have you read this?
@Madison85 I don’t understand your interpretation. If I am understanding correctly OP is saying that scholarships covered everything from soup to nuts. Reallocating the Pell Grant to taxable income simply means she is assigning other grants to QTE, still disqualifying her for the credit. Indeed, she does have to pay out of pocket for some portion of the COA to qualify.
Just read it - not sure I understand. My daughters tuition is around 8000 a year she gets need based pell grant, hope scholarship, TN student assistance, AP scholarship which she does 75 hrs service for, and tuition reduction bc her stepmother is a teacher in state. Total financial package around 14000. Am I reading this article correct in that if I allocate the money correctly then she might be able to not pay taxes?
Madison85, just did a practice run applying the AP scholarship monies and hope towards tuition books etc and she qualified for a bigger refund! I utilized the pell for no qualified expenses
So the financial package is worth $14k (any loans)? What is the cost of tuition, room, board, books, fees?
Tuition 8290. She lives at home and commutes
No loans
What’s the COA for commuters?
I think total cost for commuters is 16000 includes books tuition miscellaneous living etc