<p>My daughter babysat occasionally for our neighbors this year, maybe once a month or so for date nights, and for a few days this summer for another family. She made about $300. Now as far as I know she won't have to file a federal tax return, but we have to report the income for FASFA, correct? Will we have any problems as far as verification? She was paid in cash.
Do we just report this as untaxed income on the FASFA?</p>
<p>I estimated our EFC to be about $10,000. So we won't qualify for Pell. We might qualify for a small state grant, depending on how much need we have. She was awarded a full tuition scholarship from her first choice school so we were going to use the student loan and state grant towards room and board, fees and books, which is about $12,000.</p>
If you put it on the FAFSA, it is not going to affect her EFC at all. $300 is well below the amount that students can earn without it being assed for FAFSA EFC purposes.
You can check “will not file” for your daughter.
Agreed, it would be untaxed income.
BUT having said all that…I dont think most kids report regular babysitting money on their FAFSA forms. Unless this is a contracted arrangement…which then should be reported.
^^
I agree that most students likely do not report the occasional small cash payments for little jobs…babysitting, mowing a lawn, etc…when the total amount is less than - say $1000.
Besides, it sounds like you don’t know the real total anyway…only an approx number. I would probably not list it.
a few years ago, there was an argument on CC about whether students needed to report a $25 birthday check from grandma - some here are sticklers for any tiny amount. I would have ignored it
Thank you so much for your advice. When she applied to colleges, she listed with her extracurricular activities the babysitting as her job. So I was wondering if that would raise a red flag if we don’t put anything for her income. No, I don’t know the exact number, but she kept track of the days she babysat and I made a good estimate depending on the average amount she usually gets.
It won’t raise a red flag. But since you seem concerned about it, if you can make a good estimate, just go ahead and put it in answer to question 45i. It won’t hurt anything and it seems doing so will make you more comfortable. You’ve already done the hard part in doing the estimate. The student gets a $6310 allowance before any income is counted toward EFC so nothing will change in that regard.