How to enter Room & Board expenses in 1098-T / 1099-Q sections

[bcaldwe1]

Turbo Tax is not prompting for room & board expenses in this section (only Book expenses).  How do I go about entering, in order to get the proper netting of 1099-Q and total college expenses?

[jmsalt1]

I've spent the last 2 hours attempting to resolve the same issue!!  It's always been a little cumbersome in the past TurboTax desktop versions but for 2025 as described by bcaldwe1, I can't for the life of me find a spot to enter the room & board this year for off campus housing.  In the past, there has always been a simple spot to input it on the same screen / page where you are able to enter book.  Also, in the past there was a simple spot to enter expenses related to a computer & related purchases. 

So I have the same question for someone who can help, How do we go about entering off campus room & board (rent & food) , not captured as part of the school's 1098-T in order to get the proper netting of 1099-Q and total college expenses?

[jmsalt1]

Time to enter x's education expenses

Required books and materials from the school

Optional books and materials from the school

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I'm pasting the screen within TurboTax 2025 here where historically you can enter room & board for off campus housing as well as computer purchases.  For the life of me I can't locate those options in TurboTax 2025 desktop version.  This screen grab is from after first inputting a 1099-Q which is greater than the total reflected on the corresponding 1098-T from a given university where the difference in my case is for off campus housing & food which are below the university's COA as published by their financial aid office so those expenses are qualified education expenses and there should be a spot to enter them as there has always been one in the past. Help!!

[jmsalt1]

For the OP and others, here is the best information I've found but it doesn't resolve the weird UI for 2025 in TurboTax relative to prior year.  It's really confusing not having those options there and anyone who isn't paying close attention could easily input their 1099-Q and then their 1098-T and be confused or not notice they are getting taxed on the difference if they fail to find a way to put their off campus R&B in somehow given the 2025 TurboTax desktop version is missing this functionality at this point in time.  It has been there for years....as far back as I can remember as a TurboTax user for over a decade with one college grad and two in now (junior & senior). 

What is a 1099-Q? Reporting Payments from Qualified Education Programs - TurboTax Tax Tips & Videos

[manisman1995]

Same exact problem.  Has always been a prompt !!!  When can we expect this to added back to the desktop version?

[gk72]

I have the same exact issue.  TurboTax always makes this a bit painful.  But this year it seems they forgot the room and board prompt.  Similar to others on this thread, I get the books prompt, but nothing for room and board.  Seems like an error.  

[jmsalt1]

Here's a scenario where the recommend solution posed by some (just don't enter / report any of the information from your Form 1099-Q or Form 1098-T because it's not required by the IRS) doesn't work.  This is just an example, does not apply to myself for 2025.  Say you have a 1099-Q showing you withdrew $50k from your 529 plan for a beneficiary in 2025.  You also have a Form 1098-T for the same beneficiary showing they had $30k of payments in qualifying tuition expenses in Box 1 of the 1098-T.  In addition to that, the beneficiary had $15k of qualifying education expenses in the form of off campus / non university Room & Board (rent & food).  In this example, say this tax filer had inadvertently withdrawn $5k that is not considered a withdrawal to cover qualified education expenses, so this difference needs to get reported and any penalty / tax paid.  The current version of TurboTax Desktop Premier Tax Year 2025 doesn't provide any way to properly report that amount with the lack of any ability to enter the non-university off campus Room & Board of $15k anywhere.  So, I ask again, can someone at TurboTax PLEASE raise this issue and get it corrected?  This feels like a big miss and I have no idea how it has somehow vanished for this tax year when it has been there as far back as I've had to report on 529 Plan withdrawals which is 2019.  If this thread needs to be moved to get the proper attention, someone please do so.  It seems a little odd to be under the Taxes > Retirement section. 

[acetani]

I just wasted 3 hours on this.  Is there a number to call?

[Hal_Al]

TurboTax is aware of the problem and are working on it.  No fix date has been posted. 

[Hal_Al]

The 1099-Q is  only an informational document. The numbers on it are not required to be entered onto your (or your student's) tax return. The interview is complicated and it's easy to make mistakes. Avoid it if you can and you can. 

You can just not report the 1099-Q, at all, if your student-beneficiary has sufficient educational expenses, including room & board (even if he lives at home) to cover the distribution. When the box 1 amount on form 1099-Q is fully covered by expenses, TurboTax will enter nothing about the 1099-Q on the actual tax forms. But, it will prepare a 1099-Q worksheet for your records (you don’t need it). You would still have to do the math to see if there were enough expenses left over for you to claim the tuition credit. You also cannot count expenses that were paid by tax free scholarships.

References:

1. On form 1099-Q, instructions to the recipient reads: "Nontaxable distributions from CESAs and QTPs are not required to be reported on your income tax return. You must determine the taxability of any distribution." 
2. IRS Pub 970 states: “Generally, distributions are tax free if they aren't more than the beneficiary's AQEE for the year. Don't report tax-free distributions (including qualifying rollovers) on your tax return”.
3. "IRS Publication 970, Tax Benefits for Education states: If the entire 1099-Q went to qualified expenses, room and board, tuition, etc; then, you do not need to enter the form." 

[jmsalt1]

Hi Hal_Al,

As outlined in my example above, this solution posed by yourself and others in the past (just don't report / include your 1099-Q and / or 1098-T information) doesn't resolve certain scenarios and is just a bad resolution.  I hope TurboTax isn't falling back on that as their official stance on it and is sticking to your earlier post above which indicates they are aware of the problem and are looking to address it, hopefully quickly.  This is crazy, the ability to enter Room & Board not covered / included on a 1098-T as qualified education expense has been there in TurboTax in the past, and all the way up to last year.  It makes me less confident in the product when this type of stuff happens.  

[manisman1995]

I have found a solution that works for me.  You can go into Forms, and on left select "People wks (student)". Then scroll down to Part IV Education Expenses.  I manually entered Room and Board

Now I can go back to the 1099Q associated with that student and the worksheet is has done the tax/penalty calculation.  

Now, don't get me wrong this took some time to figure out for me as an engineer I could not let it go 😀. I still expect the product we pay for to have the interview prompt as they have done in the past.

v/r

[jmsalt1]

There is additional discussion at this thread as well.

Re: Why doesn't turbotax allow me to enter qualified education expenses like room & board? is their ...

It sounds like TT is working on a solution.  

[jmsalt1]

I went down the path suggested by manisman1995 this AM.  The only issue I had was the Qualified Tuition Program (QTP) Computation of Taxable Distribution in the "For Purposes of Regular Tax" column was just wrong.  No way to drill down on the cell that was being calculated incorrectly, Line 2 c.  I detected it by writing down my Fed & State refunds prior to moving forward.  For some reason, TT was causing the AGI to be overstated for my daughter and while that had no impact on her Fed taxes, it was incorrectly increasing her state taxes due off AGI.  So, to correct this, I had to right click and override that cell (Line 2 c) with the correct amount.  Only at that point, were things correct even after entering her Education Expenses manually at the Form "People wks (student / taxpayer)" at line 6 for Room & Board.  Her Tuition per Box 1 of her 1098-T and her Room & Board (not included on 1098-T) entered at the corresponding "People wks" at Line 6 exceed her 529 Plan withdrawals to her as beneficiary and the janky calculation within TT was still somehow computing that she had income attributed to her 1099-Q. 

[afaczan]

I so agree...I have spent hours and asked 3 experts and none of them are aware of bugs or any updates.  I plan to hold off at least a week or two to see if anything changes. It is beyond frustrating and even more so when you've done your due diligence and saved receipts/records etc and you're ready to enter the room & board and the boxes don't appear (like they have for the past 3 years)!!

Fingers crossed something changes...