1098-T

[isabel]

Is it legal for an institution to send out 1098-T forms only if you've paid a certain amount of interest during the year?

My student loans are primarily through Nelnet, but I have one small one with my university and the payment is made directly to them. I called because I haven't gotten anything from them yet and they told me they only send out 1098-T forms to those who paid more than $600.00 in interest during the year. It seems weird to me that they can select what seems like an arbitrary number.

Of course, the lady on the phone also tried to tell me that I paid "about $x.xx" in interest and seemed annoyed when I told her I wanted the exact figure.  *-)

[delawarejen]

Are you sure that you don't mean a 1098-E (Student Loan Interest Statement)? (A 1098-T is for tuition.) 1098-E's do have a $600 threshold. From IRS.gov: "Who must file. File Form 1098-E if you are a financial institution, governmental unit (or any of its subsidiary agencies), educational institution, or any other person who receives student loan interest of $600 or more from an individual during the year in the course of your trade or business."

Wanting to know how much interest you did pay I can understand. You mentioned that you have other loans. If you qualify to take the student loan interest deduction based on your income, *and* you don't already max it out with your other loans, I'd call back. Otherwise it doesn't really matter.

[isabel]

Jan 26, 2015 20:49:11 GMT -5 delawarejen said:

Are you sure that you don't mean a 1098-E (Student Loan Interest Statement)? (A 1098-T is for tuition.) 1098-E's do have a $600 threshold. From IRS.gov: "Who must file. File Form 1098-E if you are a financial institution, governmental unit (or any of its subsidiary agencies), educational institution, or any other person who receives student loan interest of $600 or more from an individual during the year in the course of your trade or business."

Wanting to know how much interest you did pay I can understand. You mentioned that you have other loans. If you qualify to take the student loan interest deduction based on your income, *and* you don't already max it out with your other loans, I'd call back. Otherwise it doesn't really matter.

Dammit, yes. 1098-E is what I meant. I have too many tax forms going in my head right now. Waiting on a 1098-T for DH. 

So, I didn't meet the $600 threshold for my loans with Nelnet, but they did a 1098-E anyway. Is that just because they're a larger loan servicer and they do it for everyone?

I did get the actual amount. She just acted weird about it when I told her I wasn't putting a rough number into what I was filing.

[isabel]

Jan 26, 2015 21:55:13 GMT -5 @callmefia said:

She was probably overwhelmed.

As someone who prepares lots and lots of 1099s, it's really frustrating to have people calling me for this stuff before the end of the month. I'm still trying to get more forms out under a lot of pressure and when people call me to see when their forms will be mailed, it's really frustrating considering the time frame for mailing isn't up yet and I will get to them as soon as tons of people stop calling me to ask!

Also, if you get statements with your payments, the info should be available to you to compile.

But I won't be getting a form. I was pretty sure I knew this would be the case this year because I didn't get one last year. This time, she explained why I wouldn't get one, but I don't think they told me that last year. In any case, I needed the information to finish my taxes and they don't really send proper statements, just a total amount that I owe. There's no breakdown for interest to even figure it out.

She spent a decent amount of time (over a minute) looking up what I had paid in interest and then didn't give me an actual dollar amount. It was sort of odd. She said, "you paid about $115 in interest in 2014." When I asked for an exact figure, she ended up telling me I actually paid $144.37. Obviously not a massive difference, but if I'm reporting it to the IRS, I want the numbers to be right.

I know it's overwhelming. I wasn't trying to be difficult. But I do have a right to know that information and there isn't a better way for me to access it, unfortunately.

[Deleted]

They are not required to send you a 1098-E if you paid them less than $600.

You can probably find how much you paid online or on your last statement somewhere. If not, call them back next month. People don't realize how much work goes into compiling tax information, cross checking, submitting to various taxing agencies, formatting forms, etc. Calling before February does nothing but delay this information from actually getting printed and mailed.