<p>I am a parent of a first year student and need help on filing tax in connection with tuition and fees.
we paid the following to kid's school:
student life fee 651
tuition 21544
orientation fee 416
health service 450
transcript fee 95</p>
<p>we got 1098 from school saying we paid tuition 21544 and required fee 496.
does that mean only 496 and tuition fees are qualified expenses? her school also lists estimated 2000 dollars books and supplies in cost of attendance. kid did not spent that much and only bought used books from upperclass students and hence no receipt whatsoever to prove the amount spent. can I just put an estimate of, say 700?</p>
<p>thanks for your input.</p>
<p>I assume you will take the AOC credit? If so anything over $4000 in qualified expenses doesn’t really matter. On form 8863 you can only count up to $4000.</p>
<p>Were all the fees on a bill from the school? Were they all required of all students in order to attend? Was everything billed and payed in 2011? If so, they should all be QEE as long as you have the bills and documentation for the payments.</p>
<p>As for the books, the IRS doesn’t like estimates. Did she keep any kind of record of how much she spent and for what?</p>
<p>Those amounts are over the maximum AOC credit without the books or were there scholarships/grants that you are trying to exceed?</p>
<p>Thank you very much for your help. Yes, everything is on the school bill except books and they were paid last semester. I guess orientation fee and transcript fee are one time only for all freshmen. we do have grant and scholarship but it covers half of the total of tuition and fees we paid. we also have to pay 10K room and board and I know that is not qualified expenses. So i dont need to worry about the books cost since we are well beyond the 4000 dollars cap.</p>
<p>Have a nice day.</p>