College required Spring Semester tuition be paid by 12/31/17 so we withdrew from 529 to pay the bill. But their 2017 1098-T doesn't include that payment. What do we do?

[bergfamily]

I assume the college will include the tuition for spring semester 2018 in their 2018 1098-T. But this doesn't help us in 2017, where we had to withdraw from the 529 in December 2017 to meet the college's deadline of December 31, 2017 for payment of that tuition.  Turbotax wants us to pay tax on the withdrawal we made in December 2017 because of the way the college is reporting spring semester tuition.  How do we work around this issue?

[MinhT · Accepted solution]

If you paid the spring 2018 tuition in 2017, you can claim it as education expenses in 2017 even if it is not reported on form 1098-T.

In TurboTax, when filling out your form 1098-T, enter only the amount in Box 2, even if both boxes 1 and 2 are filled.

Under box 2, on the 1098-T screen is a blue link: What if this is not what (student name) paid to the school? Click on that and you will be given a chance to enter what was actually paid in 2017.