Q. Am I required to file a 1098-T form for receiving a Pell grant?
A. No, you are not REQUIRED to file a 1098-T* of report a Pell grant. What you are required to do is determine if any of the Pell grant is taxable and then report the taxable amount. TurboTax can handle that for you, if you enter the 1098-T and enter all your qualified expenses.
Scholarships that paid for non qualified expenses are taxable. Tuition, fees, books and computers are qualified expenses. If box 5 of your 1098-T is more than box 1, TurboTax will automatically treat the difference as taxable scholarship income unless you tell it differently, by entering more expenses. Room and board are not qualified expenses for a grant/scholarship to be tax free.
There are also situations where some of your scholarship will become taxable, if your parents are using some of your tuition to claim a tuition credit.**
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*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 possibly your student has taxable scholarship income.
If you claim the tuition credit, you do need to report that you got one or that you qualify for an exception (the TurboTax interview will handle this)
You claim the tuition credit, or report scholarship income, based on your own financial records, not the 1098-T. In the 1098-T screen, click on the link "What if this is not what I paid the school" underneath box 1. You will then be able to enter the actual amounts paid. You will also reach a screen that allows you to adjust the scholarship amount for "amounts not awarded for 2023 expenses".
Or if you find it easier, just change the numbers in boxes 1& 5 to what your records show. The 1098-T that you enter in TT is not sent to the IRS.
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**There is a tax “loop hole” available. The student reports all his scholarship, up to the amount needed to claim the American Opportunity Credit (AOC), as income on his return. That way, the parents (or himself, if he is not a dependent) can claim the tuition credit on their return. They can do this because that much tuition was no longer paid by "tax free" scholarship. You cannot do this if the school’s billing statement specifically shows the scholarships being applied to tuition or if the conditions of the grant are that it be used to pay for qualified expenses.
Using an example: Student has $10,000 in box 5 of the 1098-T and $8000 in box 1. At first glance he/she has $2000 of taxable income and nobody can claim the American opportunity credit. But if she reports $6000 as income on her return, the parents can claim $4000 of qualified expenses on their return.
Books and computers are also qualifying expenses for the AOC. So, extending the example, the student had another $1000 in expenses for those course materials, paid out of pocket, she would only need to report $5000 of taxable scholarship income, instead of $6000.
