Do I need to include my 1098-T if I don’t care to claim the education credit?

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
March 26, 2021
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Hello. I am currently trying to file my taxes and I was wondering if it is necessary for me to report my 1098-T form if I do not care to claim to the education/learning credit? On my form, the expenses in box 1 are $4036.12 and there are no expenses or scholarships funding in Box 5 as I did not receive any. I’ve been reading that it only needs to be reported if Box 5 value exceeds that of Box 1 because then it can be counted as taxable income. But I just wanted to make sure this is the case before filing. So it would seem that I would not have to report my 1098-T right?

Hal_Al

Employee

Q. So it would seem that I would not have to report my 1098-T right?

A. Right. The 1098-T is only an informational document. The numbers on it are not required to be entered onto your tax return.

However receipt of a 1098-T frequently means you are either eligible for a tuition credit or deduction or possibly your student has taxable scholarship income. You claim the tuition credit, or report scholarship income, based on your own financial records, not the 1098-T.

Why don't you want to claim the credit. $4000 of expenses usually gets a student or his parents, if he is a dependent, a $2500 tax credit

J_taxpayerAuthor

Wow I did not know this. I’m filing my taxes by myself using the basic TurboTax and it required me to pay an additional $60 to upgrade to the deluxe version in order to claim that credit. I really wasn’t sure if paying would be worth it because I didn’t know if it would somehow reduce my refund.