Revised Reporting:

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) permitted colleges and universities to choose between two methods for reporting Qualified Tuition and Related Expenses (QTREs) to students on the Form 1098-T. For tax years 2016 and prior, University of California, Riverside (UCR) reported QTREs in Box 1 (payments received for QTREs), rather than in Box 2 (QTRE’s billed for QTREs). Beginning with tax year 2017, system upgrades required UCR to report QTREs (billed) in Box 2) rather than Box 1 (payments received for QTRE’s) for Tax year ending December 31, 2017.

Impact of Reporting Change:

The impact of this change for the tax year ending December 31, 2017, is that the amount reported in Box 2 does not include your Winter 2017 QTREs as they were billed in November 2016. That amount may not have been reported in Box 1 on the 1098-T for the tax year ended December 31, 2016 because fees for Winter 2017 may not have been paid in that year.

Claiming Education Credits on Your Individual Tax Return:

You should use the information on the Form 1098-T in conjunction with your own payment records to complete your individual tax return. You can retrieve your payment history information by logging into R’Web, Student Account, Account Information. If you have questions about how to compute an education tax credit, consult your tax professional or refer to IRS Publication 970.

* See the amendments to Internal Revenue Code section 6050S under the Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes Act of 2015 (Pub. L. 114–113 (129 Stat. 2242 (2015)) (PATH). Specifically, Section 212(b) of PATH amends section 6050S(b)(2)(B)(i) to eliminate the option for eligible educational institutions to report aggregate qualified tuition and related expenses billed for the calendar year.