Tax Help-Fall11 fee paid in Jan12??

<p>Hi. my son has 2011 taxable scholarship income. he received a $6100 grant in Jan2012 that was used to pay part of the FALL 2011 term (this is specified for Fall11 on the univ bursar acct.). Since i cannot include the $6100 with his other 2011 scholarships (even though it was for FALL 2011 fees but was disbursed in 2012), I will include this on next years taxes (2012) as well as $6100 of qualified educational expenses from FALL2011 that wer unpaid until Jan12. Would I be correct in doing this? thank you in advance.</p>

<p>Is this his first year in college? This is a fairly complicated question that demands more specific details. Did you get a 1098-T from the college? Did the 1098-T show “Payments received” in box 1, or “Amounts billed” in box 2? (The institution can choose either method of reporting) How much scholarship income was reported in box 5? If the $6100 was included in the amount on box 5, then the college considers it as 2011 scholarship income.</p>

<p>three4three, thanks for your reply. my son is a sophomore. He’s not getting a 1098T for the 2011 year. The univ stated that he isn’t eligible for a 1098 since the full tuition was paid by financial aid. According to the univ & IRS website, it states that a univ is not reqd to provide a 1098T if qualified tuition/fees were paid entirely by scholarships, & in my sons case it did. I know that we’re not eligible for any type of educ credits, we are just trying to determine how much taxable scholarships to claim on his 2011 return. The univ online billing has everything broken up by school term w/related fees & payments, ie. Fall 2011, Spr2011, etc. Under Fall 2011, the $6100 grant is included as pmt for that term but again it has a 1/6/2012 disbursement date. I’m thinking since this amount wasn’t actually paid in 2011, I can’t include it with the 2011 scholarships received. And I’m thinking that I should include $6100 of the Fall2011 billed amount on 2012 taxes (which would be Qualified Educ Exp) AND the $6100 grant received in JAN12 as part of scholarships received, the two will offset each other. I’m just not sure if this is the correct thing to do.</p>

<p>FYI, my son will have about $10,000 in taxable sholarships for 2011 & the same for nxt yr provided no changes in finaid.</p>