<p>
Most people will pay their 2013 Federal income tax due by 4/15/14. See page 6 of <a href=“http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1040gi.pdf;[/url]”>http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1040gi.pdf;</a> also see [Payment</a> Plans, Installment Agreements](<a href=“http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/Payment-Plans,-Installment-Agreements]Payment”>http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/Payment-Plans,-Installment-Agreements) for payment plans
you don’t need to pay the tax withheld again</p>
<p>Any tax withheld from your summer job will be subtracted from your tax liability and you will owe the balance when you file.</p>
<p>It would be best to file taxes in early February and pay the entire balance when you file. If your 2014-2015 fafsa is selected for verification you will need to either use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool or send the school a tax transcript. Many here on CC, including me, have reported that in past years neither the tool nor the transcript were available until they paid the tax balance due to the IRS. This could delay finaid processing at your school for 2014-15.</p>
<p>‘you don’t need to pay the tax withheld again’</p>
<p>The withholding is just an estimate of what you might owe, and you use it as a credit after you figure out your tax liability. Say you make $15000 (adjusted gross income). You then take the deductions you are allowed to figure your taxable income. Say you take the standard deduction for 1 person ($6100) and the standard exemption if no one else can claim you ($3900) so you have taxable income of $5000. Let’s say you are in a 10% bracket, so you’d owe $500. Now subtract your prepaids (withholdings). If you withheld $600, you get $100 as a refund. If you only had $400 withheld, you owe $100.</p>
<p>You may have had too much withheld from your summer earnings, so you may not owe ANYTHING for your scholarships…you may even get some money back.</p>
<p>How much was withheld?</p>
<p>Can anyone recommend a free/cheap online method that this student can figure her taxes?</p>
<p>[TaxACT</a> | Free Tax Preparation Software, File Taxes Online, Free E-filing](<a href=“We're sorry, we're unable to connect to the page you requested.”>http://www.taxact.com/)</p>
<p>I used the online version 8 or so years ago. Now I use the downloadable paid federal/state version and really like it. Pretty sure the state versions have to be paid for. I don’t know how complicated CA forms are or if the student even has to file. Something the OP has to check into.</p>
<p>Hello, and thank you all for your responses!</p>
<p>I have a couple more questions (sorry lol) so I checked out the Tax Act link and as I was using the tax estimator I realized that I was only aloud to used the tuition and fees deduction if I was not claimed as a dependent!? I then went on to read some info on the cite about the deduction and I found this,</p>
<p>[Tax</a> Topics - Topic 457 Tuition and Fees Deduction](<a href=“http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc457.html]Tax”>http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc457.html)
“You cannot take the tuition and fees deduction on your income tax return if your filing status is married filing separately, or if you may be claimed as a dependent on someone else’s return. The deduction is reduced or eliminated if your modified adjusted gross income exceeds certain limits that depend on your filing status”
Edit:To clarify it doesn’t subtract the 8000 put into the qualified expenses section under education, only the 6100 leaving me with about 11000 in taxable income and expected to pay 1200 in taxes!</p>
<p>So basically does this mean I will be taxed on all of the money!? and my parents receive the deduction, I don’t understand how this is fair since I have paid for all of my expenses on my own with no help from them. If they don’t claim me as a dependent (which I know will never happen because they usually receive a large tax return) will this have an effect on my FAFSA application as I have to file as a dependent,((Do the dependent statuses have to match for my tax return and my FAFASA?) and when they do claim me as a dependent, would it be unreasonable for me to ask them to help pay the taxes?</p>
<p>As for the withholdings from my summer job they were only about 168 dollars or so, and I’m expecting to have to pay around 500+ in taxes</p>
<p>Your parents can only claim you if they support you. If they don’t support you, then you can claim yourself. Do they support you?</p>
<p>Depending on how much you received in aid and how much you earned, it is usually better for the student to remain a dependent and let the parents have the deductions and exemptions. If you don’t owe enough in taxes, the excess deductions/exemptions will go to waste. You need to get the 1098-T, your w-2s, and then run the numbers.</p>
<p>But this section is for the tax deduction on tuition, not on the taxes owed for awards received - two different things.</p>
<p>My parents supported me for the first 6 months of the year so they should claim me as a dependent, but they aren’t supporting me anymore.</p>
<p>Thank you twoinanddone for clarifying that, my w-2 will be mailed the last week of January, but as far as the 1098-T, if the school doesn’t automatically give me one can request this form?</p>
<p>For the figures above, I’m not sure if I’m not putting the money in the correct place, I put 17505 as taxable income and then 6100 was subtracted from that figure, there is no place for me to enter that the money is from scholarships/grants.</p>
<p>Your 1098 should be readily available-- either mailed to you directly or posted on your online account somewhere. If for some reason it’s not provided automatically, you can certainly request it.</p>
<p>This form lists your total scholarship and grands, as well as the amounts billed for qualified expenses. It will also note if this includes your Spring semester fees/scholarships (it often does). No need to try to do the math on your own</p>
<p>Personally I would use something like TurboTax to file your taxes (free online). It’s much easier than trying to do them yourself. It is very straightforward in asking for specific numbers, and figures out all your exemptions, deductions, etc automatically.</p>
<p>If you have taxable money from your $17505 (that’s all your scholarship, right?), I think you have to file a 1040A, not 1040EZ. Follow the instructions.</p>
<p>It’s really had to do it all without having the 1098-T, as the amounts you get to exclude are in one box, total in another box, etc. You don’t count loans and you need to separate out your income.</p>
<p>Pull up the instructions for the 1040A and see if those help.</p>
<p>As I said above, schools aren’t required to provide a 1098T if scholarships/grants exceed tuition/fees. My son’s school doesn’t. If you don’t get one, you could try and request one but they may not provide it. Even if they do, there is a note on the 1098T that it is only an advisory document. Source records such as bills are a better source to get these numbers. Many on CC have reported that the 1098Ts they have received have not been accurate.</p>
<p>The tuition and fees deduction is not related to whether you can subtract tuition, fees and books from the scholarship/grant amount. It is something entirely different. You can always subtract qualified education expenses from scholarship and grant amounts. Only the difference is taxable income. </p>
<p>I haven’t used the tax estimator on the site. It’s probably not as robust as the actual tax program. When you begin actually doing your return it will walk you through various topics depending on how you answer the questions asked. Your summer earnings should be entered in the W-2 wages topic, any interest/dividends in the investment topic and it will walk you through the education topics where it will ask for the amount of scholarships and grants received, the amount of tuition/fees billed, what you spent on books and so forth. And it will handle those things properly.</p>
<p>No, you don’t have to file a 1040A, you can file a 1040EZ.</p>
<p>From the numbers you have given, I think the amount you will owe after subtracting the amount already withheld will be in the $160-$175 range.</p>
<p>When you come to do your taxes, the Irs has links to free file programs you can use to file online. I suggest you use one of them.</p>
<p>Some basics about taxes. When you file taxes, there is a standard deduction which is basically an amount you can earn without owing taxes (can be more complicated if you have unearned income). The amount varies depending on whether you are single, married, head of household etc. this has nothing to do with college, it is an exemption all tax filers are eligible for. It is likely you will be filing as a single person so will get the standard deduction for a single person - $6100. You are entitled to this even if your parents claim you as a dependent. You will file your own tax return.</p>
<p>There is an additional exemption that can be claimed. It is around $3900. When a person claims themselves, this is a personal exemption. If someone else claims a person, it is called a dependent exemption. It is basically the same thing, it just depends who claims it. While you are under 24 and in college, it is likely your parents are eligible to claim you as a dependent and get the exemption. That being the case, they get the dependent exemption of $3900, but you still get your standard deduction of $6100. ( if they were not Eligible to claim you, you would claim the personal exemption of $3900 in addition to the Standard deduction of $6100. But in the majority of cases a college student will be the dependent of his parents)</p>
<p>For the taxable scholarships, the grants/scholarships (NOT loans) in excess of qualified tuition/ fees and required books/ supplies are taxable income to you. You will need to file a tax return if your taxable scholarships plus any other income exceed the Standard deduction. Only the excess income over the Standard Deduction will end up incurring taxes.</p>
<p>The education tax credits such as the American Opportunity Credit and Lifetime Learning are credits that reduce taxes. If you are claimed as a dependent, the person claiming you can claim the credit. You can not. To get the credit, qualified education expenses must be paid out of pocket (including with loan proceeds).The credits are a separate thing to the standard deductions and personal exemptions.</p>
<p>Alright, so after some looking around on my schools billing office citem they do make 1098 forms available to all students online and mail out, however I took your advice and just used me bills and found that the initial calculations weren’t far off:
+15,669.00 :Free money (school and outside scholarship, excluding loans)
+1836.00 :gross summer earnings
-8,228.82 :tuition and mandatory fees
-127.79 :books and supplies (my other books I bought from older students)</p>
<p>=9148.39 Gross income
-6100.00 (tax free)</p>
<p>=3048.39 taxable income</p>
<p>Sadly on the financial cite I saw that only tuition and fees can be subtracted, not health insurance (which i paid over 1600 for!) but that’s fine it doesn’t look like I’ll owe too much fed taxes and I’ll tackle the state tax issue when Its time to file. I’ll either refer to the free online forms posted here or see if my school will offer free tax return services.</p>
<p>Again one last thank you to all of the people who took the time out of their day(s) to help me out! I am very very grateful for each and every reply,
Happy Holiday Season Everyone!</p>
<p>When tax filing season starts, there will be a lot of threads on this forum about taxes and education topics. So when you start doing returns for real come back and check the threads and ask any questions you may have at that point. But it sounds like you have a good grasp of this.</p>
<p>Here is a tax guide for educational expenses. It’s for 2012 taxes, but I don’t think there are many changes for 2013.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p970.pdf[/url]”>http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p970.pdf</a></p>