Why am I seeing this year many form 1098 T with the scholarship box 5 exceeding the tuition amount?

[Budmeister]

Years past this hardly was the case. This is causing the students a taxable event. Any way to reduce or eliminate from becomming taxable?

[garman22 · Accepted solution]

You should ask for a detailed summary of amounts paid for qualified expenses to be sure. I came across a couple this year and they were correct. But I do NOT trust the education institutions. 

[Budmeister]

Good thought,  appreciate any other comments.

[Terry53029]

I've done 3 so far, two wrong. I always have client get detailed summary

[The-Tax-Lady]

Higher education is finally in compliance, this year, with the IRS required reporting of "Box 1 Paid' instead of "Box 2 Billed", which was always a questionable amount. That's why you should also be seeing Box 3 checked for a change in reporting methods for 2018. You still need the student's account summary, just to be sure.

[TaxGuyBill]

I heard of a number of colleges that are wrongly putting the NET amount of tuition in Box 1, rather than the total.  I suspect it is from colleges that were using Box 2 and are completely clueless how to fill out a 1098-T.

At any rate, I agree with the others that you should NOT rely on the 1098-T, you need to ask the student to get a printout of the financial account from the college that shows precisely what was paid.

[Budmeister]

THANKS  Good Advice  -- Seems the government has a way of making us work harder!

[garman22]

I literally just got an email from a client with new 1098-T's. The amounts paid are WILDLY different than the original amounts. I looked at the original account summary and agreed. Now they are coming in with these different values.........I want to see the new (if there is) detailed summary.

This is insane!!

@TaxGuyBill I completely agree. These #'s I am seeing from my client is blowing my mind.

[TAXOH]

One of the larger universities around here just issued corrected 1098-T's because they had the wrong amounts in the boxes.

[garman22]

Amazing......mine are larger dollar differences. I cant see how they are that far off.

[The-Tax-Lady]

Having worked for a few large Institutes of Higher Education I can attest to the saying "those that can do, those that can't, teach or work in Higher Education, is very true. The accounting practices are horrible by design.