<p>So I was submitting my FAFSA today and wasn't quite sure where to put the money I got from pell/cal grants (I also got a BOG waiver from my school for my tuition). While I was looking this up on google, I found (on this website) a post that said something about "if you use the money for things it allows, it doesn't need to be reported on taxes. But if you use it for things other than those school expenses qualified, it is considered income". This leads me to the question I have now- I have been using as little money from my grants as possible (sharing books with my boyfriend, using books in the library instead of renting/buying, etc) and putting away the other money to save for when I transfer from the community college I am at now, to a four year university (since I know it is much more expensive, and I thought I read somewhere that you are allowed to do this?)</p>
<p>Anyways, am I breaking some rule by not spending this money immediately on expenses for this semester? I could have sworn I read somewhere that this is allowed but now I am getting worried that I did something wrong..</p>
<p>It only needs to be reported on taxes if the amount of grants and scholarships (not loans) exceed the total of qualified tuition and fees for the year.</p>
<p>If you need to file a tax returm because your combined grants and earnings put you over a certain amount, then you do need to report the actual grants and scholarships you received in calendar year 2013 that you did not use for “allowable expenses”. You did not have to pay tuition, so you need to look carefully at what the you spent in “allowable expenses” in 2013 and subtract that from the grants and scholarships you received (not the amounts you were awarded for the school year, but the actual money you GOT) to get that reportable amount. If you also earned enough money to come up with enough to owe taxes, you do have to pay. </p>
<p>FAFSA is a whole different story. You do NOT have to report any of the grants and scholarships you got on FAFSA as they do not count as income at all for financial aid purposes, and that’s what FAFSA is all about. You also do not have to report as assets any amounts you have left from the money you got from those grants and any other financial aid. If you borrowed Stafford money and it’s sitting in an account right now, you don’t have to count it on the FAFSA. So if you are working , it’s a good idea to keep the school money and other funds separate and spend from the earned money first, because once you spend the school money, you can’t replace it with earned money and designate it as protected. If you are audited, you have to show that you go the money from the school or loan or work study for school, and you never let the balance go under the amount you exempted. Once you do, that new lower balance is all that you can claim. </p>
<p>Gah. Okay. So I finally got back around to reading this post. When I went to Hewitt Jackson to get my taxes done, I let the man (who was doing my taxes) know that I had grants, as well as working my part-time job. After looking at my W2 he said that I didn’t make enough to need to file for state, so he could just file my federal for me. I gave him the papers from my school (1098) and my grant information. However, he didn’t use any of this information in my taxes? On my income, he solely put the amount I made from my job. Also, I noticed that the 1098 listed that I only used $67 of my grants (which isn’t correct). However, that is around the amount I spent at my school bookstore (I rented many of my required books off of bookrenter.com). So does the grant only qualify to required books/fees/etc paid DIRECTLY to my school? Or can I use the money elsewhere and do I need to go into the school with my receipts to get this fixed?</p>
<p>I apologize in advance for all of the questions, I am just very confused as to how to do all this considering I am a “first-generation”. :P</p>