My D went to a private college last fall and received grants/scholarships which covered the cost of her tuition. My figures show about $800 more than QEE. The school says they did not generate a 1098t because we had no billable tuition expenses. I know I do not qualify for any type of tuition credit on taxes. My D has no other income other than the taxable $800, so she shouldn’t have to file a tax form. Do I need to report anything on my taxes? What do I report on her FAFSA? Appreciate any help!
^Beside tuition, some fees are count as qualify expenses.
As you found out, schools aren’t required to furnish a 1098T when scholarships/grants exceed QEE billed by the school. Even when they do, it is best to check your own records as you appear to have done. You can add the amount paid in 2014 for required books and supplies to QEE.
If your D has no other income she doesn’t have to file a return because she is under the filing requirement. Taxable scholarships and grants are considered earned income for having to file and for the standard deduction. You don’t have to do anything regarding your taxes.
However, you may be able to still take the AOTC. Did you pay R&B costs for her and not from 529 distributions? The link below talks primarily about Pell grants but it does mention that it would apply to any scholarship or grant that isn’t required to be used for QEE. Start with the yellow highlighted part. Your daughter could include up to an additional $4000 of scholarships/grants in her income and you could use that amount of QEE for the AOTC. She would still be under the standard deduction for a single person who can be claimed as a dependent by someone else.
The link is an IRS link.
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-utl/Pell%20AOTC%204%20pager.pdf
The basis for the info in the link is IRS Pub 970, chapter 2.
@judysnowflake: If you want up to $2500 in free money, be sure to look at the above link.
So if I understand this correctly, my D could allocate up to $4000 of grants/scholarships to room and board and then I could take the AOTC on my taxes? She does have a Pell, and none of her grants stated they specifically had to be used for tuition. Does she then have to file taxes or not, because she would still be below the standard deduction? Would the IRS track me down, as I don’t have a 1098 t?
That sounds right to me. Just keep good records in case you do receive an IRS notice. Or file a return anyway.
Also be aware of state income tax filing requirements if the threshold is lower.
I hope I’m mistaken but scholarships over QEE are UNEARNED income. Will not impact OP b/c the amount is <1000 however. For example, my D has a 75% tuition scholarship and a 5K scholarship from the College which is for dormitory (and broken up that way on her bill). I’m pretty sure she has to file and the 3K over the 2K allowance is taxed at my rate (kiddie tax). Go to http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i8615.pdf
“Unearned Income
For Form 8615, “unearned income” includes all taxable
income other than earned income as defined later.
Unearned income includes taxable interest, ordinary
dividends, capital gains (including capital gain
distributions), rents, royalties, etc. It also includes taxable
social security benefits, pension and annuity income,
taxable scholarship and fellowship grants not reported on
Form W-2, unemployment compensation, alimony, and
income (other than earned income) received as the
beneficiary of a trust.”
^If your daughter has only 5k taxable scholarships as her income, her taxable income will be zero (5k AGI - 5.35k standard deduction = 0 taxable income). No kiddie tax.
OP, if it were me, I would file a return for her even though she wouldn’t be required to. Filing a 1040EZ is relatively easy. It’s documentation with the IRS that she has included the amount in her income and it also allows her to use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool on the fafsa site to populate her fafsa with the IRS info.
@spotster, taxable scholarships/grants are treated two ways by the IRS:
- Unearned income for the purpose of the kiddie tax(form 8615) as you stated.
- Earned income for the purpose of being required to file a return and for the standard deduction.
IRS Pub 501, page 3:
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p501.pdf
The OP’s D would be under the standard deduction and not subject to the kiddie tax or owe any tax.
Only for the purpose of form 8615. In determining whether or not a return needs to be filed and how to figure the standard deduction, taxable scholarships and grants are considered earned income. A single dependent who is not either age 65 or older or blind must file a return if:
-Unearned income was more than $1,000
-Earned income (to include taxable scholarships and grants) was more than $6,200
-Gross income was more than the larger of:
-$1,000 or
-Earned income (to include taxable scholarships and grants) up to $5,850, plus $350
See IRS pub. 17, pg. 7
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p17.pdf
ETA: crossposted with annoyingdad
I agree with the filing / kiddie tax discrepancy. So this past December she cashed some bonds with interest of just > >1,000 which means she needs to file and so 1K + 5K scholarship is unearned which means she pays kiddie tax on $4000 which is substantial. What is odd is that if this tax year (2015), she JUST gets the scholarship she doesn’t have to file and won’t pay taxes? That makes me feel uncomfortable. I think I better follow up with a tax pro!
Sorry if I highjacked the OP’s question.
@spotster, I agree she has to file because her unearned income(from the bonds) is over 1k. But her standard deduction should be 5k + 350 = 5350 because the taxable scholarships/grants are earned income for this purpose. That leaves 650+ as taxable which isn’t enough to trigger the kiddie tax.
See the worksheet on page 27 of Pub 501 and look at the note at the bottom of the chart:
If you use tax software it should handle this for you.
@judysnowflake, Madison85 mentioned state income tax considerations. If your state has one it may treat taxable scholarships/grants differently than federal. My state treats them as unearned income for filing and the state standard deduction, unlike federal. So there may be implications for you too.
And don’t worry about not having a 1098T, the IRS knows schools aren’t required to provide one when scholarships/grants exceed QEE. The 1098T is an advisory document to let people know they may be able to take an education credit.
@annoyingdad So I would have to report my D’s taxable scholarship income on her FAFSA. Would this reduce our EFC in any way? On the FAFSA there is a place for scholarships reported to the IRS, but this would not be reported. Thanks for your help.
If she files a return, her AGI would go on the question that asks for that. Then on question 44d she puts the amount of taxable scholarships/grants reported to the IRS in her AGI. The fafsa formula subtracts 44d from her AGI so she isn’t penalized for having received taxable scholarships/grants. So EFC isn’t affected. I recommended earlier that she file a return even if not required to do so.
If she doesn’t file a return she doesn’t have an AGI and you are correct, you don’t put an amount in 44d because it wasn’t reported to the IRS. Financial aid is excluded from being ‘other untaxed income’.
What is the benefit of her filing a return? I am concerned that her taxable scholarships weren’t reported to the IRS and I don’t want to trigger the IRS to audit me. My D has no other income.
As I said in post #8: “If it were me, I would file a return for her even though she wouldn’t be required to. Filing a 1040EZ is relatively easy. It’s documentation with the IRS that she has included the amount in her income and it also allows her to use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool on the fafsa site to populate her fafsa with the IRS info.”
That would only be if you want to take advantage of the AOTC for yourself by having her report more income. If she files then she will have reported them to the IRS. If you don’t want to take advantage of the AOTC then I wouldn’t have her file.
There have been a few reports here on CC of people having received letters of inquiry from the IRS when doing this. I never did. They have replied back with numbers from their records, bills and records of payments, and that’s been that. That’s not a full-blow audit.