<p>I have 3 children and have 3 separate 529's and UTMA's established. My oldest will be attending college next year and that application process is in motion. I met with a college advisor/planner who advised me to liquidate all 6 accounts and park the $$ in some sort of insurance product effectively reducing my EFC by $10,000 a year. Is that </p>
<p>My oldest has $28K-529/$13K-UTMA, 13 YO $28K-529/$9K-UTMA, and my 11 YO $21K-529/$8K-UTMA. Is this good advice to liquiate all my kids' accounts and how will it affect the CSS profile and FAFSA application for my oldest next tear? Is it legal? It seems on the surface as a little underhanded. I also felt based on the consulatation that I would be offered additional non-related insurance products down the road. Any insight would be appreciated.</p>
<p>Is the college advisor also an insurance salesman, by any chance? I’d be wary of this advice.</p>
<p>It’s true that some annuities aren’t reported on the FAFSA and Profile forms, and therefore the money can legally be hidden from financial aid formulas. However, before you start moving funds around, make sure you understand what your marginal gain will be. How did the advisor come up with the $10,000 reduction in EFC? Was that for one child or all of them together? The math doesn’t work if it’s just one child.</p>
<p>A 529 will add 5.6% of its value to your child’s EFC, and a UTMA will add 20%. So your oldest child’s investments will add $4168 to his or her EFC (28000 x 5.6% + 13000 * 20%= $4168 if I’ve done the math correctly and also assuming that the 529 is in child’s name). If you transfer his or her UTMA to a child-owned 529, his or her EFC is reduced to $2296 (41,000 x 5.6% = 2296). You’ve reduced the EFC but have still kept the funds liquid so that they can be used for college expenses, rather than tying them up in an illiquid annuity.</p>
<p>If all 529s are parent-owned 529s, then they must all be reported on your oldest child’s FAFSA. So you might actually have $77,000 in 529 funds. This will add $4312 to your oldest child’s EFC. Adding in his UTMA (13,000 x 20%) will give an EFC of $6912 for child 1. Again, moving the UTMA to a child-owned 529 will result in a reduced EFC. You could also gift the parent-owned 529s to each child rather than keeping them in the parent’s name; this will remove the younger children’s 529s from the oldest child’s EFC.</p>
<p>Note that reducing EFC does not translate into an increase in financial aid.</p>
<p>As vbm said, 529 accounts are treated as parent assets in FAFSA. How much impact the 529s will have on the EFC will depend on what other reportable assets you have. You have a certain amount of asset protection based on the number of parents and the age of the older parent. Only assets over that protected allowance will impact the EFC, and the maximum impact they should have is 5.6%/</p>
<p>Another thing to consider is any possible impact to income and taxes of liquidating the 529s. Disbursements for any reason other than qualified educations expenses would cause any the income on the disbursements (anything over original contribution) to be taxable income and would also attract a 10% tax penalty. Not only might you have tax consequences, the increased income would impact your EFC. Income usually has a greater impact on EFC than assets. Up to 47% of income can go to the EFC (compared to 5.6% of assets).</p>
<p>Also, I’m not sure you can legally cash in a UTMA (which belongs to the child) and park it in an insurance vehicle that you own. The laws regarding UGMAs allow money to be spent for the child’s benefit but as UTMA accounts are in the name of a single child, the funds are not transferrable to another beneficiary.</p>
<p>I think the plan suggested to you is very questionable both legally and as far as how beneficial it would actually be. Make sure you check in to it all very thoroughly.</p>
<p>The 529’s are in mine or my wife’s name with each individual child listed as beneficiary. The advice with regard to the EFC reduction was based on all three kids together. </p>
<p>I guess when your college advisor asks you how much life insurance you and your spouse have and what is the rate on your 1st and 2nd mortgages, that they may be in the business of offering other products and services. He was very professional. Is there ANY upside to liquidating all these accounts in an attempt to shield these assets from the FA formulas? My gut says no.</p>
<p>I started with you and VBM-great insight. My gut is telling me to keep these assets where they presently are.</p>
<p>swimcatsmom makes a good point about the taxes and penalties due on liquidation of 529s, so that’s yet another reason to not use them for anything but qualified higher education expenses.</p>
<p>In addition, if you have large unrealized gains in the UTMA, you’ll need to factor that into the equation. </p>
<p>Keeping everything where it is isn’t necessarily the best choice if your intent is in fact to use all the money to pay for your children’s college. There may be other big-picture factors (using the UTMA money to buy a car for one kid, etc) that you have in mind, but all other things being equal here’s what I would do:</p>
<ol>
<li> Move child 1’s UTMA to a child-owned 529 owned by child 1.</li>
<li> Move $26K of child 2’s 529 to a child-owned 529 owned by child 2 (this is the annual gift tax exclusion limit for Federal taxes).</li>
<li> Move all of child 3’s 529 to a child-owned 529 owned by child 3.</li>
</ol>
<p>You don’t have to do anything right now with the UTMAs owned by childs 2 & 3 because they’re so young, but you can plan to convert them to 529s in the future.</p>
<p>The net result will be $30K in parent-owned 529 funds which will be reported on child 1’s FAFSA, and $13K in a 529 fund owned by child 1, resulting in a marginal increase in EFC of $2408 ($43,000 x 5.6%). That’s compared with an EFC of $6912 if you do nothing.</p>