Community Exchange

Hello,

We are reviewing our IT access for graduated students after a certain period of time has lapsed. As part of this consideration is the ability to access a copy of the 1098T form for prior years. 

Can anyone advise as to whether the IRS requires us to provide copies of 1098T's for prior years and if so for how long? 

Thank you.

Hi Jeanette - the institution should be able to provide a student a copy of a previously issued 1098-T for a retention period (generally minimum of 4 years, but standard policy seems to be 7 years).  But, that does not mean that the document needs to be consistently available electronically for the student.  It's sufficient to have a copy available upon request.  So, if your office has records of everything that was filed for a particular year and maintains that for a period of years after filing in accordance with a retention policy, that would be sufficient.

Hope that helps!

Hello,

We are reviewing our IT access for graduated students after a certain period of time has lapsed. As part of this consideration is the ability to access a copy of the 1098T form for prior years. 

Can anyone advise as to whether the IRS requires us to provide copies of 1098T's for prior years and if so for how long? 

Thank you.

Hi Jeanette - the institution should be able to provide a student a copy of a previously issued 1098-T for a retention period (generally minimum of 4 years, but standard policy seems to be 7 years).  But, that does not mean that the document needs to be consistently available electronically for the student.  It's sufficient to have a copy available upon request.  So, if your office has records of everything that was filed for a particular year and maintains that for a period of years after filing in accordance with a retention policy, that would be sufficient.

Hope that helps!

Hello,

We are reviewing our IT access for graduated students after a certain period of time has lapsed. As part of this consideration is the ability to access a copy of the 1098T form for prior years. 

Can anyone advise as to whether the IRS requires us to provide copies of 1098T's for prior years and if so for how long? 

Thank you.

No problem!

Hi Jeanette - the institution should be able to provide a student a copy of a previously issued 1098-T for a retention period (generally minimum of 4 years, but standard policy seems to be 7 years).  But, that does not mean that the document needs to be consistently available electronically for the student.  It's sufficient to have a copy available upon request.  So, if your office has records of everything that was filed for a particular year and maintains that for a period of years after filing in accordance with a retention policy, that would be sufficient.

Hope that helps!

Hello,

We are reviewing our IT access for graduated students after a certain period of time has lapsed. As part of this consideration is the ability to access a copy of the 1098T form for prior years. 

Can anyone advise as to whether the IRS requires us to provide copies of 1098T's for prior years and if so for how long? 

Thank you.

Hello

Thank you so much for posting this!  Does anybody know if NACUBO has communicated a "best practice" for how long we should make students' 1098-T available on the web?

Stewart Maxson

Eastern Washington University.

No problem!

Hi Jeanette - the institution should be able to provide a student a copy of a previously issued 1098-T for a retention period (generally minimum of 4 years, but standard policy seems to be 7 years).  But, that does not mean that the document needs to be consistently available electronically for the student.  It's sufficient to have a copy available upon request.  So, if your office has records of everything that was filed for a particular year and maintains that for a period of years after filing in accordance with a retention policy, that would be sufficient.

Hope that helps!

Hello,

We are reviewing our IT access for graduated students after a certain period of time has lapsed. As part of this consideration is the ability to access a copy of the 1098T form for prior years. 

Can anyone advise as to whether the IRS requires us to provide copies of 1098T's for prior years and if so for how long? 

Thank you.

Good evening,

I am not sure if NACUBO spoke to this specifically but for all IRS tax matters, the IRS can audit taxpayer returns for up to 3 past tax years. The only exception is if they suspect fraud and then they can audit up to 7 past tax years. To my knowledge, this is the general retention standard and expetctation for most tax reporting.

As noted, a school is not required to have these readiliy accessible to the student electronically for this length of time but should be able to provide a copy upon request if needed. Providing at least the two most recent past tax years seems to resolve most of the requests we get but depending on login and IT or external vendor policies for any electronic access to student documentation, your staff may still have to do the work to provide the requested document.

Hello

Thank you so much for posting this!  Does anybody know if NACUBO has communicated a "best practice" for how long we should make students' 1098-T available on the web?

Stewart Maxson

Eastern Washington University.

No problem!

Hi Jeanette - the institution should be able to provide a student a copy of a previously issued 1098-T for a retention period (generally minimum of 4 years, but standard policy seems to be 7 years).  But, that does not mean that the document needs to be consistently available electronically for the student.  It's sufficient to have a copy available upon request.  So, if your office has records of everything that was filed for a particular year and maintains that for a period of years after filing in accordance with a retention policy, that would be sufficient.

Hope that helps!

Hello,

We are reviewing our IT access for graduated students after a certain period of time has lapsed. As part of this consideration is the ability to access a copy of the 1098T form for prior years. 

Can anyone advise as to whether the IRS requires us to provide copies of 1098T's for prior years and if so for how long? 

Thank you.