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The 1098T has been a problem ever since it was introduced. Remember when it first came out all the schools had to fill in was the full-time student box? The rest of the form was blank. Now all they've been filling out is the "amount billed." Means nothing. The IRS has audited lots of our clients, asking for proof of amount paid. When the clients request their record of account from the school, guess what? They often didn't pay the amount billed within the calendar year and owe some tax. It's about time the schools have to fill in all the boxes. My question is why the heck did it take so long? I can't guess why the IRS issued a form and for years hasn't required it to be completed in its entirety. This has led to a lot of audit letters and wasted IRS resources and wasted tax pro time and cost taxpayers interest. (Silly them, they trusted the official form.)

We have clients who have kids in colleges that REFUSE to issue 1098-T citing some rule about not required to, if the scholarships exceed the amounts billed. Colleges' apathy and carelessness are as much to blame for all the mess as the inconsistency of the IRS about this.

Without a 1095-B, how is a preparer to know how many months the taxpayer was covered by Medicare? This discussion is overthinking and underthinking the question. Being on Medicare does NOT automatically mean the taxpayer was covered all year. Form 1099-SSA does NOT indicate all the information needed to verify coverage for all 12 months. Now my rant... As long as the IRS continues to grant reprives, move deadlines and ignore all the rules and penalties, there is no reason for anyone to do more than a cursory job of due diligence on this matter. The IRS does not know how and where things are at now, nor for the last 3 years, nor where they are going, how in the world are they going to police all these.

One of the most useless forms ever.

My husband's Medicare coverage started in Aug 2015 and he got one too with boxes checked for Aug through Dec. Too bad Part III was completely blank so that it didn't indicate the issuer of the form or coverage provider. I guess that would be too much to expect.