@Hal_Al
Our oldest is now a senior in college, and we're helping her with her taxes. This will be the 4th time for us to claim the AOTC for her and with your help in the past we know how to do that smoothly. I don't feel as confident on the student's side of things. I know the 1098-T should show what charges were PAID in a calendar year but may incorrectly show a different amount, which we had to work through in the past. What I don't appear to have addressed in the past is that the scholarship money for spring semester is "paid" in January regardless of when charges hit or the other payments are made. She usually had enough costs to keep the scholarship income fairly minimal, so we never even looked into workarounds to denote scholarship $ was for a previous year. (And I'm not sure I fully understand how that works. Jan scholarship money needs to be accounted somehow; I know it's not "free" money.)
A tuition payment was made in Dec '22, but the tuition wasn't even charged yet in Dec '23. So for calendar year 2023, there is scholarship and grant $ for two semesters but only charges & payment for one. Is it correct to believe there isn't a way to help the situation? Or at least there isn't because we haven't dealt with the Dec/Jan mismatch with scholarship money in the past, so we can't do that now?
If we had another student in the future at the same school, I would make sure we made payments in January, the same as the scholarship, govt grants, and loans. However, our second student is at a different college, and I don't think we can avoid the problem. Payment has to be made in Dec for spring semester, but it's looking like scholarships, govt grants, and loans all post in Jan. Is there a best method for approaching this? If addressing the Dec/Jan mismatch for the second child needs to be another thread, I understand.
Thank you!
