Taxpayer Relief Act (TRA) Services
Assisting Higher Education Institutions in Meeting IRS Reporting Requirements
The Customer
U.S. Higher Education Institutions
The Challenge
The Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 (TRA) established the Hope Scholarship and Lifetime Learning Tax Credits to help ease the financial burden on those paying for higher education. However, the TRA imposed new information reporting burdens on higher education institutions, requiring them to provide their students with the 1098-T forms used by students and their families to claim the tax credits. Schools must provide the 1098-T forms to their students by January 31 of each year, and they must submit the 1098-T data to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) by March 31 of each year. In addition, schools receive numerous telephone inquiries about the tax credits from students and their families. Higher education institutions were looking for outside help to meet these critical information reporting and customer service requirements.
The Solution
Pearson Government Solutions developed TRA Services to provide a complete outsourcing solution to the 1098-T reporting and customer service requirements. Our services include:
- Receiving and processing 1098-T data from institutions
- Printing and mailing 1098-T forms, along with information about the tax credits
- Reporting 1098-T data to the IRS in the prescribed format
- Managing a correction process to report 1098-T corrections to students and the IRS
- Providing a Web site and toll-free customer service number to disseminate information, update data, and answer student and taxpayer questions
- Providing nationally recognized expertise in understanding and complying with the federal legislation and IRS requirements related to the TRA
We offer standardized service packages designed to meet schools’ varying needs and budgets. Our Standard Service includes receiving data from schools, printing and mailing the 1098-T forms, submitting the 1098-T report files to the IRS, and providing schools with an archive file of information reported to the IRS in the IRS-prescribed format. Schools may also purchase additional services, including Web Service with secure access for school staff and students, Full Service with 24-hour toll-free call center support for students and families, and printing of students’ detailed financial data on the 1098-T forms.
Using the latest in high-speed, multi-function printing systems, Pearson prints 1098-T forms on 8½-by-11-inch paper at our in-house printing facility. We include a one-page fact sheet about the Hope Scholarship and Lifetime Learning Tax Credits to answer students’ and taxpayers’ most frequently asked questions. We use a nationally recognized postal presort vendor to perform bar coding, ZIP+4, and other mail preparation services to reduce postage costs and expedite delivery. Pearson’s experienced and knowledgeable customer service representatives serve as a single point of contact to assist schools throughout the entire 1098-T processing cycle.
The Results
Pearson Government Solutions has printed and mailed more than 20 million 1098-T forms, on behalf of some 320 schools, since the TRA went into effect in 1998. During that time, we have never missed a single IRS reporting deadline.
Clients responding to our annual Customer Satisfaction Survey rank our services, especially our customer service, extremely high, and our clients keep coming back year after year. Pearson’s TRA Services for Tax Year 2005 were rated as Above Average or Excellent by 98 percent of survey respondents.
Schools must consider many areas of costs when deciding whether to outsource their 1098-T reporting processes, including the costs of paper, postage, printing, manual processing, IRS data reporting, and customer service. Due to economies of scale, Pearson Government Solutions can generally provide the complete 1098-T reporting service for less than the school’s cost of performing it in-house.
For further information about Pearson’s TRA Services, call 800-654-8341 or e-mail
hopescholar@pearson.com. Or visit our Web site,
www.hopescholar.com, to take an online tour of our services.
