Search Help Topics:

1

A qualified tuition program (also known as a 529 plan) is a program set up to allow you to either prepay or contribute to an account established for paying a student's qualified education expenses at an eligible educational institution. Your state government or eligible educational institution can tell you whether or not they participate in a QTP.

An American opportunity or lifetime learning credit can be claimed in the same year the beneficiary takes a tax-free distribution from a QTP, as long as the same expenses are not used for both benefits. This means that after the beneficiary reduces qualified education expenses by tax-free educational assistance, he or she must further reduce them by the expenses taken into account in determining the credit.

See IRS Publication 970 Tax Benefits for Education, pages 56-60 for more information.

You will receive a Form 1099-Q from each of the state programs from which you received a QTP distribution in the tax year. 

To enter data from your Form 1099-Q Payments from Qualified Education Program:

  1. From within your TaxAct® return (Online or Desktop), click Federal. On smaller devices, click in the upper left-hand corner, then select Federal.
  2. Click Education to expand the category, then click Education program payments (Form 1099-Q)
  3. Click New Copy of Form 1099-Q (Desktop Users click Add) to create a new copy of the form or click Review to review a form already created. The program will proceed with the interview questions for you to enter or review the appropriate information

For more information, see State Tuition Programs.


Was this helpful to you?