Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997
for University of Wisconsin Campuses

 

Project Definition

The Internal Revenue Service implemented the reporting requirements established by the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 starting for Tax Year 1998, for universities and colleges to report on tuition received and student loan interest received. Universities and colleges must send IRS Form 1098-T for tuition received and IRS form 1098-E for student loan interest received to each individual making such payments to the University. For calendar year 2007, the forms must be sent to the student or debtor. In addition to mailing the two forms, a file must be transmitted to the IRS in a manner similar to the files that the University sends for 1099's or W2's. For year 2007, the forms must be mailed out before the end of January 2008, and the files must be electronically sent to the IRS before the end of March 2008.

In calendar year 2007 UW System Administration successfully underwent a project to outsource the printing of the 1098 forms.  Starting with calendar year 2007 reporting, the UW System will now have the 1098 forms printed by University Accounting Services (UAS).

In 1998 it was decided that since the UW System has a single taxpayer ID number that the UW would do the reporting for all of the UW institutions. However, since student tuition/fee and student loan records are not centralized, each of the institutions in the system will transmit the tuition and student loan interest information to UAS in a standardized format so that UAS may mail out the forms and send the necessary information to the IRS.

UAS will store all of the data received by the individual UW institutions in a database system and will report this information to the individuals and the IRS per established IRS reporting deadlines.

UW institutions will forward updates of contact information to Ginger Hintz at UW System Administration. Each institution will provide an "address" contact for the 1098-E, and another for the 1098-T, which will be printed as the return address on the appropriate form. These two "address" contacts are for recipients of the 1098-E and 1098-T to correspond with in order to ask questions pertaining to the appropriate form. In addition, the institutions will provide Ginger Hintz at UW System Administration with a set of "user" contacts from that institution who will be authorized for accessing and updating the Taxpayer Relief Act (TRA) information system. The institutions will also be assigned authorizations to enable them to electronically transmit files to UAS that contain their 1098-E and 1098-T information.

The files transmitted to UAS by the institutions will need to be in a standardized format (see Formats on TRA97 Web Page). In November 2007 institutions may begin to send test files to UAS, in order to verify that the files are in the correct format (see Timeline on TRA97 Web Page). The institutions will need to send their production information by early January, 2008.

UAS will mail out the 1098-E and 1098-T forms for the entire UW System in late January, 2008. UAS will electronically file with the IRS before the end of March, 2008. After that date, if UW institutions discover that corrections need to be made for specific records, the "user" contacts may view and update the TRA system the UAS system on the web. The user contacts will also be able to reproduce and print a new copy of either of the forms locally using the UAS system on the web.

UAS will electronically transmit a set of correction files to the IRS in late July, 2008.

 


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