Tax Year Prior to 2020: Turbo tax won't let me enter in my tuition and enrollment fees.

[KrisD15]

What is it that you are trying to do? 

With the desktop CD, you can switch to FORMS (upper right corner of the screen) 

Look at the Student worksheet and/or Form 8863.

If you click on a line, it can show you were the numbers are coming from and often you can change them right on the form. 

What is it that you are trying to do or what problems are you having? 

If you are in Step-by-Step mode, continue through the questions and it may bring you back around to enter the 1098-T if that is your issue. 

[metshar]

same!

[AmyC]

@metshar You have to keep hitting enter and continue through the education screens until your reach Education Expenses Summary. Then you can click edit. Keep going! It is in there.

[DaleLape1]

I have the CD/downloaded TurboTax and have gotten all the updates ….but when in the deductions and credit section and it has a line saying Tuition and enrollment fees and it is zero and when I click on that link it pops up a window stating that I had entered it earlier...but I have not and can not find where to enter my 1098-T form data.

It is as the other people have explained, but the solution does not work.  PLEASE HELP.

[t2pham]

I got the issue that after entering the information on the 1098-T form, everything looked good, but it said the scholarship is more than the tuition(!). In the summary page, $0 was shown instead of the tuition. I tried some work-around suggested in the forum but the issue couldnot be resolved.

Definitely this is a sw bug, i have been using TT for over 10 years, never got this issue before. Please help, thank you

[AmyC]

@DaleLape1  @t2pham You must keep going through the education section despite the zero, keep going, continue on until you reach Education Expenses Summary. Then everything can be edited.

[t2pham]

Thanks Amy for quick response. I did the steps you showed, but still got $0 in the summary page, even though the tuition was displayed in the form 1098-T. I kept going through the process to the end of State filing, but did not see the tax amount updated.

Would you have any other work-around?

Thank you.

[DaleLape1]

After I posted I continued reading and trying and found the hidden path to where to enter the 1098-T form data.  FYI...for those who follow the screen shot in the reply to my question looked slightly different (I have the cd/Download version).  As they say, go beyond where you have ZERO for tuition, and get to the "Here's your  Education Summary".  On this page you should (may) have the college listed with the amount ZERO.  Click the EDIT button on this line and you hopefully will be able to enter the data from your 1098-T form.  Good Luck.   I hope next years version has a better work flow for this.         Thanks again for the help.

[AlabamaPlateGuy]

There appears to be a bug in the MAC version of the code, at least from the easy-step perspective.    Once you add a student, you can not go back to that path.   Additionally, as others have noted, there is no method (Using easy-step) to enter "Tuition and other Expenses'.       I was able to edit the existing 1098-T form (imported from the 2018 tax year) directly and input the information on the form.    Once this was complete, then a value (Entry 1 on the 1098-T form), was reflected in the 'Tuition and other Expenses'.       I would suggest a coder go back and look at path through this section.     One path to look at is an import of 1098-T from a previous year.      There is no method using easy step to populate that form.  

[Your username must be at least t]

As this thread demonstrates the problem is, simply stated: there is a persistent bug in the TT software for the education credit section which has yet to be fixed. A sub-problem: the experts don't understand this and continue to copy/paste repeat the same ineffective answers ad nauseum.  I am doing both the 2018 and 2019 returns this year (they owe me) and am facing this problem for the 2018 year Windows version. So this bug and the same answers have been around for at least two tax years. 

Here is what worked for me and may not work for you:

Leave the step-by-step (where the bug obviously is) and enter the information directly via the Forms. (Click Forms on the upper right corner for the desktop version. No idea what it would be for online rental, sorry.)

You will have to edit the "Student Info Wk" for the student you are claiming. Look for it in the form list on the left panel.

If you are OCD like me, the best way to make sure everything is fine is to launch a previous year version of TT and go to the same forms. Then compare the "Student Info Wk" and "Tuition Summary" forms and make sure the same boxes are ticked (Unless your circumstances have changed, and obviously the numbers will be different this year.) 

Finally, on Part II of the Tuition Summary form, click on Launch OPTIMIZER, to trigger TT's calculation of your best benefit. 

If you now go through the interview, this should have forced TT to reluctantly add the right credits. Hope this helps.

[dfigra]

When I complete my daughter's education summary it says that "you can't claim an education tax break".

"Based on what you've entered so far you are not eligible for an education credit.

Here is why you may not qualify:

• Your income exceeds the maximum limit
• Scholarships, grants and other tax free assistance exceed the education expenses
• There were no net qualified education expenses.

When I hit continue it shows that the Expenses and Scholarship section as not been started. I'm having trouble understanding why is shows as not started when I've entered 1098-T form a number of times now. Please help!

[MikeMMM]

At the “expenses and Scholorships” page it tells me my gross income exceeds the maximum limit. So there is no way to add the tuition.  In the pages where you can enter individual education expenses all fields are editable except tuition which is populated with a zero with no option to change it.  I was under the assumption that there wasn’t an income limit to use 529 funds without tax penalty for eligible expenses. 

[CAD_13]

Having the exact same problem.  Tried manual entry on the Forms View.  Didn't work.

[LinaJ2020]

If you are filing with TurboTax online, let's do these steps: 

• Check your internet connection.  Try to log out and sign back in the program. 
• Clear your cache and sign back into the program.  To clear cache, click here: Cache
• You may also try a different browser.  
• Then enter the Form 1098-T as follows

In TurboTax online,

• Sign in to your account, select Pick up where you left off
• At the right upper corner, in the search box, type in "1098t" and Enter
• Select Jump to 1098t
• Follow prompts

If you have paid qualified education expenses and meet certain requirements, you may qualify for an education tax break including the American Opportunity Tax Credit AOTC, Lifetime Learning Credit or Tuition & Fees deduction. To see if you qualify, here are the links: 

Qualified expenses

Deductions

Credits

[ERT15]

not a fix just a work around . very stressful BUG. wonder how much h&R costs