<p>I started this thread a year ago and found that the information presented is still quite current. I thought many parents would find the information included in this thread useful.</p>
<p>I believe the simple principal is that if scholarships and grants do not exceed tuition and fees, there are no tax consequences.</p>
<p>Okay, I have a question: My son's scholarship covers tuition and engineering fees, including a required laptop computer. We use the additional NMF stipend from the university for a student activity fee and textbooks. Am I going to have to produce receipts for the textbooks?</p>
<p>I'm not a parent, but I'm really freaked out about whether I have to pay taxes this year. I'm a first year in college and the scholarships I won exceeded my tuition and related fees. Do I have to pay taxes on the difference? I also worked during the summer at a retail store. Do I have pay taxes for this as well?</p>
<p>TJ, the answer is probably yes. You definitely should seek the assistance of an accountant to check this out.</p>
<p>midmo, I don't believe books are deductible from income and anything other than tuition and required fees is very likely to be considered income. Or, put another way- I dang sure could't find a place to subtract them.</p>
<p>For purposes of the tuition credits or tuition deduction, only tuition and required fees count.</p>
<p>We are working on our son's taxes. He is a sophomore in college and receives a scholarship that covers both qualified educational expenses and room/board. We realize that the portion of the scholarship that covers room/board is taxable.</p>
<p>Does my son have to include the taxable portion on his 1040EZ or can we, the parents, include it on our tax statement? We would prefer to cover it.</p>
<p>thanks.</p>
<p>Do you mean he is doing a tax return anyway? If so I think he would have to include it there. I don't think you can put part of his income on yours and part on his. Wouldn't his tax rate be lower anyway? If something we do costs the kids more money we just give them the difference.</p>
<p>Okay, we're reviewing FA offers and finding out what they all mean. This thread was helpful, so I'm bumping for others in the throws of decisionmaking.</p>
<p>If health insurance is not considered a qualified expense, what if the school and the state (Massachusetts) require that students carry health insurance? Then can it be used as an expense?
I had health insurance before college, and it was covered by my father's company, however the health insurance was not valid out of state (in Mass.) so my parents had to pay for a different health insurance coverage.</p>
<p>S received a scholarship which was applied directly to tuition expenses. He has been told he's going to be 1099-ed this month. Does this get counted as income even though it's paying tuition? The organization called it a scholarship all through the process, then when S actually got the check, it was called an "award."</p>
<p>His total scholarships/awards do not exceed the cost of tuition.</p>
<p>CD- he should get a 1098T which shows the amount of the award given in 2008 and the amount of tuition billed/paid in 2008, if the second number is bigger, no worries</p>
<p>That is an excellant post about scholarships and taxability. I see that IRS Pub 520 has now been replaced with Pub 970. I am ashamed to say however, that after reading the initial post, I still have an unanswered question about scholarships. Specifically, what exactly is a qualified scholarship? I've looked through all the IRS code and Regs and cannot find a clear statement of how to determine if an amount of money is by definition a scholarship. What attributes or aspects of a donation make it a "scholarship" and not a prize? Does it need to be labeled as such by the donor? Does it depend on the intended use of the funds, whether explicitly stated or implied? Does the IRS provide donor institutions with a statement regarding the nature of their awards? I know there was something in the original post about the donor stating the purpose of the funds, but there is conflicting information in this area.</p>
<p>Thank you for taking the time to answer these important questions.</p>