When it comes to the education section, don't think of TurboTax as your tax return, think of it as what it is, a tax program.
With that said, your TurboTax needs all the documents (1099-Q and 1098-T) to do the math. If you have distributions, you can include expenses for room and board. Those expenses can be used by the distribution. If you don't have a distribution, room and board expenses is not needed because that cannot be use for scholarships or a credit.
Your TurboTax program will tell you if you get a credit and/or if the student needs to claim any income relating to the scholarship and/or distribution, and if so, how much.
The downfall is that your TurboTax program does not know the tax situation of the student. Often your program will allocate expenses to your credit rather than scholarships/distribution if it thinks your credit will be worth more than the tax the student will need to pay.
The IRS allows for this allocating for a credit.
It's a good idea to understand how scholarships, distributions, expenses, and credits work.
We might be able to be of more help if we knew the numbers.
Basis and earnings on 1099-
Box 1 and Box 5 on 1098-T
Other expenses not on the 1098-T
Room and Board
IRS Pub 970
@josephtt
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