College Scholarship

[milkman]

Dependent student received 1098-T with scholarship of 2605.00 in Box 5.  Box 1 shown no tuition paid. This should show up as income on line 1 of 1040.  In the past this always was the case.  Why not on this return.  total income on return is $58000.00.  Filing MFJ  

[chasetax · Accepted solution]

I believe it should show as income on the dependent's return-not the parents, if I read your question correctly

[Skylane]

You may have to check with the school.   I just had one I'm still scratching my head about...

4th year student had 1098T with 25K scholarship and 0 in box 1 & 2.... Looked like income to me....    

Mom said they had about 50K in loans for the 4 years so I had her contact the bursars office. The school tried to explain in an email but it was really convoluted... The bottom line was that the school maintained the 1098T was correct by the university accounting procedures and they weren't about to change it. They did provide and itemized breakdown which I probably could have used to justified the AOTC (which IMO would have triggered an IRS letter).....   BUT the really really really good news was that Mom (HOH) found a 2nd W2 that put her over the income limit.....   yay

[rbynaker]

Bruce,

It's just that kind of year!  Anything that can go wrong . . .

OP,

1098-T forms are notoriously incorrect and the colleges don't seem to care.  Get the financial transcript to see what actually happened and file the tax return based on those facts.  You have to enter the 1098-T info in the education credit section but if you scroll down there's a box to enter the actual amounts paid for tuition, etc.

Rick

[Just-Lisa-Now-]

agreed, it would be income on the dependents return, not the parents.

[PATAX]

You hit the nail on the head Bruce.... Some of these educational institutions have multi million-dollar endowments but they can't get the form right, even after they were given the delay to fill out the payments received box... In my opinion maybe these educational institutions should be the entity that administers the education credit program, not us... Just my opinion...

[milkman]

Thanks.  The student had minimal income; so putting it on his return had no affect on taxes paid.

[Skylane]

Rick, this was in your neighborhood.... U of Richmond.... I’ve done as you suggest in the past but it always spawns criticism from the IRS.... and a lot of extra work..... the transcript does show tuition... fortunately, moms  income is too high so it is moot. 

[Skylane]

@milkman  The point is to make sure you check with the TP to determine that there actually is income.