Absolutely screwed up
Spent the better part of today trying to figure out my daughter's taxes. Considering she didn't have a job or receive any Social Security, you'd think it'd be really simple. The only "income" she had was the grants and scholarships she received for college. I'm still not sure why the government considers that "income" since she never sees a cent of it, it all gets paid directly to the college. But anyways...
The whole tax system is absolutely screwed up and with the way colleges are allowed to post items that show up on the 1098-T tax form they're required to send that reflect tuition & fees and scholarships, I'm surprised anyone in college, or anyone with a kid in college, can figure out how to file taxes on their own. Tomorrow I will probably spend the better part of the day trying to get the answers I need from the IRS. Considering that they seem to be some of the least informed people when it comes to how different tax codes work, I'm not putting any faith into getting anywhere with them and I'll probably need to pay someone at H&R Block or some place else to get my answers.
Guess I should be thankful that I don't have to file a tax return myself, though mine would be considerably easier since I only have one source of income.
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I'm real sketchy on how the grant money works also. When I went through TurboTax it had very little guidance. What I found is that if the leftover money (grants minus expenses) is under (I think $600), She might not need to file a return at all. But don't trust me, you better call somebody! Good luck with it.
About the only thing I've figured out for sure is that she doesn't need to file because the tuition & fees is more than the scholarships/grants she received. No taxes, great, I should be done...but not quite.
The problem I have is the college's inclusion of the tuition from Jan-Mar of 2012 on her 2011 statement and the fact that they didn't include the scholarship money for that same time period. Because of how they reported it, her tuition & fees is more than double her scholarship money.
Not really sure how to handle reporting that and the IRS website doesn't say anything. It just kept referring me to one of their publications, which I've read a dozen times and it says nothing about what to do with this 2012 money being included on a 2011 tax statement.
It's a screwy thing that I don't want to come back and bite us in the ass a couple of years from now when she gets her final tax statement from her college.
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