1098-T and who pays the tax?

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
March 21, 2021
1 reply
0 views

Hi - my son is claimed as my dependent. In Dec 2019 I paid for his spring 2020 tuition, which included a $3000 scholarship for Spring semester. The college sends the 1098T to him in his student portal, his name is listed of course as student's name.

His 1098T only shows $3000 as a scholarship against no tuition (since the payment was received in Dec 2019.) So TurboTax is saying the $3000 is income.

In the TurboTax question that asks if I have any education expenses in 2020 I said yes because he was in college, but with COVID they all got sent home and there were no book expenses, etc. No room and board either, he came home and finished the semester online.

Should I have answered "no" because in fact I didn't have any education expenses in 2020? The 2020 tuition already was reduced by the scholarship amount, but the scholarship showed up by itself on the 1098T, I guess because that's the year they applied it?? If answered no, that skips the whole 1098T section... but there is actually a 1098T for 2020 so I don't know what to do.

Since I paid the college and he's my dependent, wouldn't that extra "income" go on my tax return, and not his?

TurboTax Home & Biz Windows

Bsch4477

Employee

The $3,000 you paid in 2019 would be a qualified education expense for education credit on your 2019 return assuming that there was no off setting scholarship for that year. As the 1098-T for 2020 indicates the student would have an income of $3,000 since the scholarship has no off setting expenses. But since that amount is lower than his filo requirement he doesn’t have to file and the form can therefore be ignored.