Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997
for University of Wisconsin Campuses

FTP File Layout Specifications for 1098-T Information

Each University of Wisconsin institution is required to provide the UW Processing Center with a file, via ftp, that contains one record for every student who paid tuition and segregated fees to that institution from January 1st, 2007 through December 31st, 2007. The only students to be omitted are those students who were issued a 100% refund of tuition and fees. In addition, universities do not need to file reports for:

  • Students whose entire tuition and related expenses were waived or paid by means of a scholarship;
  • Students whose entire tuition and related expenses were paid under a “formal billing arrangement” with an employer, government entity, or any other institutional third party specifically designated by the IRS as a formal billing arrangement;
  • Students who are nonresident aliens, unless specifically requested; or
  • The noncredit courses in which students are enrolled, even if the student also is enrolled in credit courses.

In tax year 2003, each campus chose one of two methods for reporting tuition and financial aid amounts. Method 1 requires campuses to report amounts based on payments received during the calendar year. Method 2 requires campuses to report amounts based on the amount billed for that calendar year.

Regardless of which method was chosen, there were new amount fields that the IRS required be reported. In order to comply with these new regulations, we are asking that campuses send the following amounts for each student. If every value is zero for a given student, then a record does not need to be sent for that student.

  1. Qualified tuition and related expenses paid or billed for the spring session of 2007. This amount is reported starting at position 375. In past years, many campuses have already been reporting this amount, as well as some of the next seven fields.
  2. Qualified tuition and related expenses paid or billed for the summer session of 2007. This amount is reported starting at position 387.
  3. Qualified tuition and related expenses paid or billed for the fall session of 2007. This amount is reported starting at position 399.
  4. Qualified tuition and related expenses paid or billed for any other session in 2007 not covered by spring, summer or fall, and any prepayments for 2008 that are for any term that starts in the first three months of 2008. This amount is reported starting at position 411.
  5. The amount of any grants or scholarships received for the spring session of 2007. This amount is reported starting at position 435.
  6. The amount of any grants or scholarships received for the summer session of 2007. This amount is reported starting at position 447.
  7. The amount of any grants or scholarships received for the fall session of 2007. This amount is reported starting at position 459.
  8. The amount of any grants or scholarships received for any other session in 2007 not covered by spring, summer or fall, and any grants or scholarships received in 2007 that are for any term that starts in the first three months of 2008. This amount is reported starting at position 471.
  9. The total amount of adjustments regarding either: reimbursements or refunds of qualified tuition and related expenses made during the calendar year that relate to payments received that were reported for a prior year; or any reductions in charges made for qualified tuition and related expenses made during the calendar year that relate to amounts billed that were reported for a prior year. For example, if a student paid for spring 2003 tuition in December of 2002, and dropped a course; they would receive a refund in 2003 for a payment made in 2002. However, if a student receives a refund in the same year that the bill or payment was made, then one of the tuition session amounts should be decreased, and there is no tuition refund amount to report. This amount is reported starting at position 423 and is referred to as the “Prior Year Tuition Refund amount”.
  10. The total amount of reductions to scholarships or grants that relate to financial aid awarded in a prior year. For example, if a student received funds from a grant in 2002, and has to pay the proceeds back in 2003, then the amount paid back would appear in this field for tax year 2003. However, if a student pays back a grant in the same year that the grant was awarded, then one of the financial aid session amounts is decreased, and there is no reduction reported in this field. This amount is reported starting at position 483 and is referred to as the “Prior Year Grant and Scholarship Reduction amount”.

    In addition, the IRS is requiring a new indicator field.

  11. An indication if any part of the qualified tuition and related expenses that were either paid for or billed in calendar year 2007, but relates to course work that starts in the first three months of 2008. This indicates if any of the tuition session amounts pertain to course-work in the spring of 2008. This indicator field is reported in position 495 and is referred to as the “Tuition Next Year Indicator”. Possible values are “Y” or “N”. If left blank, a value of “N” will be assumed.

The eleven fields above will be displayed on the web application, and will be editable. However, the eight fields for tuition and financial aid by session will not print on the 1098T form that the students and/or parents will receive for tax year 2007. Instead, the totals of all four sessions for tuition and for financial aid will appear. Thus, the following information will be printed on the 1098T form.

  1. The sum of all sessions for qualified tuition and related expenses (points 1,2,3 and 4 above) will appear in either Box 1 or Box 2 of the 1098T form. If the campus is reporting based on payments received, this sum will appear in Box 1 and Box 2 will be empty. Conversely, if the campus is reporting based on amounts billed, then Box 1 will be empty and the sum will appear in Box 2.
  2. The amount of prior year tuition refunds (point 9) will appear in Box 4.
  3. The sum of all current year sessions for grants and scholarships (points 5,6,7 and 8 above) will appear in Box 5.
  4. The amount of prior year reductions to scholarships or grants (point 10) will appear in Box 6.
  5. Box 7 will be checked if the value of the “Tuition Next Year Indicator” (point 11) is set to “Y”.

Please note that Box 3 and Box 10 should be ignored by all campuses.

As in the past, the value for the at least half-time student indicator determines if Box 8 is checked or not. Likewise, the graduate student indicator determines if Box 9 is checked or not.

Please note the following for determining how to set the graduate student indicator. If the student was enrolled in a program that leads to a graduate level degree or credentials of any sort, then this field should be Y, otherwise it should be N. There has not been a change to the IRS regulations for this indicator, just a clarification in our instructions for determining the correct calculation of it.

In version 8 of PeopleSoft Student Financials, the field size for lines of street address was increased to a length of 55. Also, the size of the student name is 50 characters in PeopleSoft 8. In order to provide for these changes, we are increasing the size of those fields in order to have a deliverable address.

Since there are so many changes this year, we decided to reorganize the entire file layout. Thus, all of the address fields are now grouped together. Likewise, the amount fields have also been grouped together.

Campuses may send up to four lines of street address for each student. Starting at position 117, there are three additional fields of length 55 that can be used for very long addresses. Please note that you still need to send a file of fixed length. Also note that the City and State or Country Code are still mandatory fields.

If a campus does not send the extra three lines of street address, please remember to pad those positions with spaces such that the rest of the fields are in the appropriate positions.

Position Field Description Field Type Field Length
1 Campus Identifier. (See Appendix A for valid codes.) Character 1
2 to 10 Student's Social Security Number or Individual Taxpayer Identification Number. {Note: Starting in tax year 2003, institutions must make a reasonable effort in obtaining a SSN from every enrolled student.} Numeric, with leading zeroes 9
11 to 60 Student's Name in the form: Last First MI Character 50
61 Foreign address indicator. Indicate with "Y" if the address is in a foreign country, otherwise use "N". Character  1
62 to 116 Student's Street Address Line One. Character 55
117 to 171 Student's Street Address Line Two. This is an optional field. Please pad with spaces if not used. Character 55
172 to 226 Student's Street Address Line Three. This is an optional field. Please pad with spaces if not used. Character 55
227 to 281 Student's Street Address Line Four. This is an optional field. Please pad with spaces if not used. Character 55
282 to 321 Student's City Character 40
322 to 323 Student's State or Country Code. Use either the state code if the student's address is in the United States, or use the country code if the student's address is foreign. Character 2
324 to 332 Student's Zip Code Character 9
333 to 372 Account Number. This is an optional field, which can contain any information that may be useful in answering questions about the form. This will be printed on the form, but not sent to the IRS. Character 40
373 Half-time indicator. If the student attended for at least halftime (as defined by Federal Financial Aids standards) any time during the year at your institution, indicate with "Y", otherwise it should be "N". Character 1
374 Graduate studies indicator. If the student is enrolled in a program that leads to a graduate level degree or credential of any sort, then indicate with "Y", otherwise use "N". Character 1
375 to 386 The amount of qualified tuition and related expenses for spring 2007. The amount is in cents, with leading zeroes. Do not use any punctuation. No commas, decimal points, nor dollar signs. This amount cannot be a negative value. Numeric 12
387 to 398 The amount of qualified tuition and related expenses for summer 2007. The amount is in cents, with leading zeroes. Do not use any punctuation. No commas, decimal points, nor dollar signs. This amount cannot be a negative value. Numeric 12
399 to 410 The amount of qualified tuition and related expenses for fall 2007. The amount is in cents, with leading zeroes. Do not use any punctuation. No commas, decimal points, nor dollar signs. This amount cannot be a negative value. Numeric 12
411 to 422 The amount of qualified tuition and related expenses for other academic sessions in 2007, and any prepayments for 2008 that are for any term that starts in the first three months of 2008. The amount is in cents, with leading zeroes. Do not use any punctuation. No commas, decimal points, nor dollar signs. This amount cannot be a negative value. Numeric 12
423 to 434 Prior Year Tuition Refund amount. The amount is in cents, with leading zeroes. Do not use any punctuation. No commas, decimal points, nor dollar signs. This reduction amount should never be a negative value. It should either be zero or a positive value. This is the total amount of adjustments regarding either: reimbursements or refunds of qualified tuition and related expenses made during the calendar year that relate to payments received that were reported for a prior year; or any reductions in charged made for qualified tuition and related expenses made during the calendar year that relate to amounts billed that were reported for a prior year. Numeric 12
435 to 446 The amount of any grants or scholarships received for spring 2007. The amount is in cents, with leading zeroes. Do not use any punctuation. No commas, decimal points, nor dollar signs. This amount cannot be a negative value. Numeric 12
447 to 458 The amount of any grants or scholarships received for summer 2007. The amount is in cents, with leading zeroes. Do not use any punctuation. No commas, decimal points, nor dollar signs. This amount cannot be a negative value. Numeric 12
459 to 470 The amount of any grants or scholarships received for fall 2007. The amount is in cents, with leading zeroes. Do not use any punctuation. No commas, decimal points, nor dollar signs. This amount cannot be a negative value. Numeric 12
471 to 482 The amount of any grants or scholarships received for any other session in 2007 not covered by spring, summer or fall, and any grants or scholarships received in 2007 that are for any term that starts in the first three months of 2008. The amount is in cents, with leading zeroes. Do not use any punctuation. No commas, decimal points, nor dollar signs. This amount cannot be a negative value. Numeric 12
483 to 494 Prior Year Grant and Scholarship Reduction amount. The amount is in cents, with leading zeroes. Do not use any punctuation. No commas, decimal points, nor dollar signs. This reduction amount should never be a negative value. It should either be zero or a positive value. This is the total amount of reductions to grants or scholarships that relate to a grant or scholarship that was awarded in a year prior to calendar year 2007. Numeric 12
495 Tuition Next Year Indicator. This is an indication if any part of qualified tuition and related expenses that was either paid for or billed in calendar year 2007, but relates to course work that starts in the first three months of 2008. "Y" indicates that one of qualified tuition and expenses fields contains a portion that relates to Spring, 2007. If left blank, this will be interpreted as "N". Character 1
496 to 565 Student's e-mail address Character 70

 


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