Tuition Reimbursement

[cp44444]

I was wondering if someone could explain how to denote received tuition reimbursement funds based on the following circumstances:

An employer provides $6,500 in a tax year to an employee in tuition reimbursement funds:

• $3,500 is directly deposited into a bank account (from fund A) - it is not taxed.
• $3,000 appears on a paystub (from fund B). It does not appear from the pay-stub that the $3,000 was taxed, as the "total taxes" field falls in the same ballpark as previous stubs despite the addition of $3,000 in [bi-monthly] pay.

Did the employer account for the surplus amount over the $5,250 maximum in box 1 of the W2? It seems to me that they did not, because the FED TAXABLE GROSS amount on the last pay-stub of 2019 = the amount listed in box 1 of the W2. I was expecting box 1 to be $1,250 (6500-5250) higher than FED TAXABLE GROSS.

Am I correct in assuming that the employer only factored in the $3,000 that appeared on the pay-stub, which, because it falls under $5,250, would not change the amount listed in box 1?

If so, how would this be properly documented on a return in TurboTax?

Thanks in advance!

[AlexanderS08]

Yes, you are correct that the $3,000 which was appeared on your pay-stub is included in Box 1.

By entering your W-2 as it was issued to you, you will be properly documenting your return in TurboTax. 

You are also correct that because the tax free amount of $3,500 was less than the $5,250 maximum that you do not need to make any other adjustments to your tax return in TurboTax.