The Unofficial SMART Scholarship Forum

For other grad students wondering about this... My department only requires 2 credits a semester for a grad studentto be considered 'full time', since we're presumably working full time on research. The University, however, does not. I just had the department secretary send SMART an official letter ...

I had to extend several times past my originally planned date, going so far as to go back to TA'ing to finish to try and avoid the wrath of the SMART Debt of Damocles... I'm in a similar position (PhD research not working out) and am looking at trying to go for an extension. Would you mind saying h...

This was the fully reply I got from ASEE: Hello, Thank you for contacting us. ASEE made the decision to place all fellowship stipend payments in box 7 based on IRS instructions on identifying the payee relationship, the preparation of the 1099 MISC forms and reporting of various income types, as wel...

I got a similar reply (posted in the other thread on this topic).

For my tax return: On the 1040, the scholarship was put on line 21, other income. There was no schedule C attached. Ok, thanks. Good to know. I may go ahead pay someone to do my taxes for once as well. Back to the OP, I did finally get this reply: Hello, Thank you for contacting us. ASEE made the d...

A CPA charges ~100-125 to file taxes for you. They know all the tax laws and how to file the scholarship. I went to a CPA and I already paid my taxes and don’t have to worry about it until quarterly payments start. They saved me from trouble with the IRS and from having to pay self employment tax. ...

I tried e-mailing some random person at ASEE (I wasn't sure if they're watching the old smart e-mail account anymore). I got no response.

@kbl2017 Thanks for the link. I think that's the best answer I've seen. It would seem the correct way to do this (in the absence of internship income) is to NOT report the MISC-1099 as business income at all, but report the amount as a scholarship income. But, this will possibly get the IRS interest...

I've seen some people talk about reporting fellowship income as self employment (SE) income. I believe this is a mistake! This is not SE income under the spirit or letter of the law, and this subjects us to SE taxes (which are a very high). The reasoning for reporting it as SE income is because it s...