I don't understand any of this. It is all so confusing when you are talking 1098-T because most of the time it is the parent filing the form, not the student. But, it always talks as if it is the student entering it on their tax form.
My child's school changed their method of reporting in 2018 and stopped using Box 2, shifting to Box 1. That year's 1098-T did not look right to me at all, but I could not get the college to tell me how they arrived at the amount in Box 1. It just didn't add up at all and looked like more than it should be. When I asked them to explain how they got the figure, they just said they could not give me tax advice, no matter how many times I told them I wasn't asking for advice. I just wanted the number broken out as to how they got it - what fees, tuition, etc. It was far bigger than Box 5 and didn’t hurt me on my taxes, so I finally just gave up and used what they gave me.
Now, in 2019, after days of trying to decipher the 2019 1098-T, I have finally figured out that for some reason they have split up what my child owed in some strange way that makes no sense, shifting a huge chunk to 2018, leaving 2019 a very small amount owed, and making it look like she owes taxes on a huge sum of scholarship, when in reality the entire amount was used for Tuition and qualified fees. In fact, I did pay all that we owed in Dec 2018 for the Spring 2019 semester, but it doesn’t reflect that amount or any other known numbers logically. And, we still had to pay another huge sum out-of-pocket and with student loans for the remainder of fees and room/board. There is no way she should owe taxes on her scholarship that didn’t cover the entire tuition, let alone over $1,000 of taxes!
So, my question is, if I have statements and receipts showing that my child owed more in tuition and fees than they got in scholarship money over those 2 messed up years, can we safely just not add the 1098-T to her taxes since she was still considered a dependent in 2019 and the form went on our parental tax return - even though we didn't get any educational credit since that was already exhausted the previous 4 years?
Do I somehow need to note or enter on one of the tax forms that the qualified tuition was more than stated on this year's 1098-T? Or, do I call the extremely unhelpful college and ask them to correct it - which I'm sure they won't since I tried that last year?
Other than the scholarships, the only other income was work-study that wasn't enough to even need to file, but because it was in another state, our child has to file a state tax return.
