Does anyone know if textbooks purchased from Amazon instead of the campus bookstore still count as qualified 529 expenses? My daughter's total distribution is slightly more than her tuition and housing, but we spent a lot on required textbooks that weren't purchased through the university.

The key issue here is likely in how you're answering the tax software questions about the 529 distribution. When the software asks if the distribution was used for qualified educational expenses, make sure you're answering "yes" - this is crucial for the tax-free treatment. Also, double-check that you're entering both the distribution amount AND the earnings portion correctly from the 1099-Q. Box 1 shows the gross distribution, Box 2 shows earnings, and Box 3 shows basis. The software needs all this information to calculate properly. One common mistake is not including all qualified expenses in your calculation. Besides tuition and fees, remember that books, supplies, required equipment, and room/board (if enrolled at least half-time) all count as qualified expenses. Make sure you're accounting for everything your daughter spent on education to offset the full distribution amount. If you're still seeing the earnings as taxable income after verifying all this, try deleting and re-entering the 1099-Q information completely - sometimes the software gets confused if you go back and forth editing the same section multiple times.

Just wanted to add something important about your mileage situation. Since you're a single-member LLC on cash basis, you actually have another option that nobody mentioned yet. You could take a "draw" from your business in 2025 (not classified as a reimbursement), but still claim the mileage deduction on your 2024 Schedule C. As a sole proprietor (which is how you're taxed), you don't technically need to "reimburse" yourself - the business and you are the same tax entity. You can simply claim the mileage directly as a business expense on Schedule C regardless of whether money moved from the business account to your personal account. This is probably the best approach since you'd get the tax benefit sooner (on your 2024 return).

Just to confirm what others have said - I'm a delivery driver with a similar setup and I had this exact question last year. The key is definitely documentation! I keep a spreadsheet with columns for: Date, Starting Address, Ending Address, Total Miles, and Business Purpose. Having this detail saved me when I got a letter asking about my mileage deduction. I was able to show every trip was legitimate. Another tip - take photos of your odometer at the beginning and end of each month. I do this religiously now and it's another layer of proof if needed.

The way I fixed this issue last year was to make sure I entered the 1098-T BEFORE entering the 1099-Q in my tax software. For some reason, the order matters!

I went through this exact same situation with my daughter's 529 plan last year! The key thing to remember is that you need to have documentation showing your qualified education expenses were at least equal to your distribution amount. In your case, you withdrew $4,950 and used it all for tuition, so as long as the tuition was at least $4,950, the entire earnings portion ($845) should be tax-free. Here's what I'd recommend checking in TurboTax: 1. Make sure you entered the 1098-T form first (if you received one from the college) 2. When you enter the 1099-Q, there should be a question asking if the funds were used for qualified education expenses - make sure you answer "Yes" 3. You might need to manually enter the amount of qualified expenses you paid if they exceed what's shown on the 1098-T The 1098-T sometimes doesn't capture all tuition payments (especially if paid in different tax years), so you may need to provide the actual tuition amount you paid. Keep your tuition bills and payment records as backup documentation. If TurboTax is still showing the earnings as taxable after you've confirmed all this information, there might be a glitch in how you've entered the data. Try deleting and re-entering both forms in the correct order.

This appears to be a systemic outage affecting the WMR application's frontend interface. The error code 428 (Precondition Required) indicates the server requires conditional validation before processing the request. This is distinct from standard maintenance windows, which typically display a planned outage message. The IRS API gateway is likely experiencing high traffic volume combined with possible backend database synchronization issues. Your return processing should continue unaffected despite the WMR tool's unavailability.

I'm dealing with the same issue! Filed my return two weeks ago and have been checking WMR daily. Started getting error 428 on Thursday night and it's been consistent since then. Really frustrating timing since I was expecting my refund this week. Thanks everyone for the insights about this being a system-wide issue - at least I know it's not just me or something wrong with my specific return. Going to try checking early tomorrow morning based on what others have said about off-peak hours working better.

Is anyone else annoyed that TurboTax has gotten worse over the years despite charging more? Like, for a premium tax product, it should be able to handle something as common as Medicaid without throwing confusing reject codes. I'm switching to FreeTaxUSA next year.

Just wanted to add another perspective here - I work in tax prep and see this F8962-070 reject code fairly often. The main thing to understand is that this error happens when the IRS systems detect that your return is claiming or should be claiming the Premium Tax Credit (Form 8962), but there's missing or conflicting information. Since you had Medicaid all year, you're absolutely right that you shouldn't need Form 8962 or have a 1095-A. The problem is usually that somewhere in your tax software, you've accidentally indicated you had marketplace coverage or received advance premium tax credits. Here's what I tell my clients to check: Go to the healthcare section and look for ANY question about "advance payments of premium tax credits" or "monthly advance credit amounts" - if you answered yes to any of these, that's likely triggering the error. Also double-check that you didn't accidentally enter any dollar amounts in marketplace premium fields. The good news is this is totally fixable once you find where the conflicting information is entered!