Just a 48-year-old mom of 2 in Northern California. My kids are Monkey Monkey(MM) and Drama Llama (DL). I am married to Monkey Hubby (MH). I received MM(22)'s college tax form and confirmed that they treated his summer income as a 'tuition reduction'. Which is not doing us any favors. Would have been tax-free to him if they just treated it like income. It was technically wages, that I of course let him keep (and did not apply against his tuition).
I thought this seemed to be the case when they paid him in one lump sum, the same way they refund financial aid. On the plus side, MM wasn't planning to do any ROTH IRA contributions** and it seemed obvious enough to me (after he was paid), so I was mentally prepared to pay another $900 tax ($4,500 x 20% tax credit lost). Was just waiting to see how they reported on tax forms.
**I believe he has $0 'wages' this year so would not be able to do an IRA contribution if he wanted to.
& literally, he would have paid $0 tax on that money if it was reported as wages. The weirdest W-2 I have ever seen was the quarter he worked as a TA for the college. The only box completed on his W-2 was 'taxable wages'. Not subject to FICA or any other taxes. His income is well below the standard deduction.
I also just happened to get our investment 1099s (a couple of weeks ago, when I received the tuition tax form). Which is the only reason I can't finalize our tax return on January 1. I've got everything else dialed down the last day of the year. But I don't know what's a qualified dividend or not. That's the only tax form I really need.
So our taxes are pretty much done. At some point I will sit down and make sure all of our tax forms match my records.
I thought we did really good in January (savings) but it will all end up going to taxes and IRA contributions, probably.
I double checked if we literally could contribute $0 to tax deductible IRAs, how that landed. We can do $1,120. I will do that, to save $336 (30%). That's a no brainer.
Mostly I wanted to make a note to myself to remember to do the IRA contributions.
February 5th, 2026 at 04:48 am 1770266883
February 5th, 2026 at 03:30 pm 1770305401