Take the amount in Box 5 and subtract tuition, fees, books and anything else that counts as non-taxable. What is left is what is taxable. Enter that as what you paid for room and board.
Box 1 will include most of it, but only what is paid to the university.
Interesting the Korean u has no 1098 and for address TT wants a state and zip. I used Lincoln NE since it was with them.
Iād love for both my kids to do Masters one day but can do without the 1098 T.
Thx all
Ps - thereās only a $5k gap at Charleston and the Nebraska and Korea tuitions eat that up !!
This is a related question. I donāt understand why some kids get a 1098-T form and others do not. It appears that the form is most useful for figuring out if the student or parent is eligible for tax credits and so my kids donāt need the form, but I am still curious.
I have two children currently enrolled in college, a junior and a freshman. Both receive full financial aid from their college. The collegesā original financial aid packages cover the entire cost of attendance at both universities so tuition, room & board, books, fees, health insurance, and travel. This is all in the form of institutional grants and pell grants. They also both get some outside scholarships from 3rd parties that are paid directly to the college by the granting organization and end up replacing some institutional grant money. Neither kid has any billed expenses from their college.
What I donāt understand is why one kid gets a 1098-T form and the other does not. Iām under the impression that with a COA after aid of zero, the document doesnāt really matter since presumably we canāt claim any credits anyway. I also understand that the kids may have to pay taxes on the grant money that was used for room, board, health insurance, and travel if they earned too much from summer and term-time jobs. I just donāt understand why when I click on one kidsā 1098-T link in their student account, it says āNot eligible for 1098-T - Paid by Financial Aidā while for the other kid, there is a 1098-T document showing more money in box 5 (scholarships and grants) than in box 1 (Payments received for qualified tuition and related expenses). I donāt see any difference in the two kidsā situations or the way that their financial aid is administered except the kid who did NOT get a 1098-T received relatively more from outside scholarship organizations (about $7000, some of which got refunded to the kid by the college) vs. the one who did get a 1098-T and only received a $2000 outside scholarship, which was also disbursed by the school but had to be used for a computer or tablet or other technology equipment.
Iām not at all surprised that a school in Korea is choosing not to follow procedures prescribed by U.S. law. Now, if the program in Korea is administered by a U.S. school, you might be asking the U.S. school why they arenāt providing a 1098-T.
Sorry - Iām not surprised they donāt have a 1098.
Iām surprised TT doesnāt have a way to say - international U (which qualifies for a 529) but no way to enter in their address.
Thanks
The program was via U of Nebraska but half paid to them and half paid to Dankook U - and if anyone wants a fantastic summer experience, this was it. Each school taught a class - so two transcripts.
Have you asked the school that doesnāt provide why when the other does?
No, at least not yet. Since one of them is a freshman, this was the first opportunity that I had to notice a difference. Until I read this forum last night, I thought the way my older kidsā college did it was the way all colleges do and then I got curious based on what others were posting. I will probably ask the financial aid offices at some point but I assume that having the document (or not) doesnāt really matter as long as my kid pays the correct amount in taxes
I would suggest going on line (I didnāt get eithers in the mail this year or my W2 for that fact) but you noted you already did that.
Yep, Iād call financial aid.
itās hard to figure out taxes without the data.
For example, my daughterās school shows $39K in box 1 - payments - I guess they paid. I sure as heck didnāt 
So itās not just a question of keeping good records.
They somehow got those #s in those boxes. So you do really need their lead to get this done properly.
At my sonās university he always has to request the 1098 to use to pay his taxes.
The weird part is that when I click on the link that should lead to a 1098-T, a box pops up that says the kid is āNot eligible for 1098-T" I just canāt imagine why one of my college kids would be eligible for this document while my other college kid is not eligible.
why you need to call. yep
Well that was 30 minutes of my life that I will never get back again!
When asked why only one of my children got a 1098-T, the universities said:
However, at least there was some agreement between the two universities. When asked about how my kids should report their scholarships and grants on their taxes.
A18. The Form 1098-T is a form provided to you and the IRS by an eligible educational institution that reports, among other things, amounts paid for qualified tuition and related expenses. The form may be useful in calculating the amount of the allowable education tax credits. In general, a student must receive a Form 1098-T to claim an education credit. But an eligible educational institution is not required to provide the Form 1098-T to you in certain circumstances, for example:
As for why a school might issue a 1098-T even if they donāt have to, the school may consider it easier just to issue them for all U.S.students.
I had to do them in my last job. Even though I explicitly stated that I could not provide any tax advice, I got asked for tax advice all the time. I would not have wanted the additional questions about why my friend got a 1098-T and I didnāt - Iām sure I would have had to create them for people who didnāt need them but insisted on them. I already had to do that for international students who wanted them but didnāt ask in advance. (While I did not āhaveā to, we prided ourselves on our service to students.)
If you have to report excess funds like room and board as income, how do you do it without box 1 and 5 or do you say tuition, room and board from the COA is one and just tuition plus books and laptop is the other.
In other words you make it yourself?
Still TT wouldnāt give you a way to enter it but maybe you add it in with the first school that gave the form.
You use the actual amounts you spent, retaining receipts as backup.
Odd though not home to look but it said I paid $39k but got $43k in merit.
We donāt pay anything.
We get back a little each semester.
So I assume the $39k is the full tuition. My daughterās scholarship is a few k more than tuition. So they stroke a check to us each semester.
That 1098 T takes out the guessing. I assume itās right as they do it butā¦.based on what youāre saying, maybe not ??
So is the tuition/required fee total for that year $39,000? That would make sense. The total paid section is amounts received from any source for tuition/required fees only (which isnāt necessarily what one paid themselves). The scholarships/grants section is for the total of all scholarships and grants administered through the school. You are able to reduce the excess scholarships (in your case, $4000) by qualified expenses (detailed in the IRS publication). Remember, the 1098-T is just a document. If you want to understand it better, https://edge.sitecorecloud.io/nacubo1-nacubo-prd-dc8b/media/Documents/Secured/Advisories/NACUBO_2018_1098TGuidance.pdf.
Thx. Got it. My taxes cleared. I donāt qualify for the credit based on income. Well so says turbo tax and for my daughter summer tuition will kill the delta. She wonāt owe abd isnāt interested in a refund for the little she paid - no w2 it was so little. So Iāll likely have her file to be safe but but sure itās necessary. thx.
1098-T forms are notoriously inaccurate (although Iām sure all the ones that kelsmom prepared were perfect ). And, the 1098-T is intended to assist tax payers with claiming education tax credits. You use it at your peril for any other purpose. As pointed out above, you really need to track the expenses and payment amounts and sources on your own. Itās not hard, especially if you have even a rudimentary understanding of spreadsheets.