Business/Farm Supplement: Itemized Expenses

Paying for College
1

Hi - I am filling out the Business/Farm Supplement for the CollegeBoard financial aid form. I asks for Itemized business expenses over $1000.

Does anyone know how specific they are are about this? Should I list any given vendor gets payments that total over $1000 in the year? That seems the most likely. But it could also mean categories (like subcontractors, advertising) or just specific $1000+ transactions. It seems like there should be more detailed instructions somewhere, but I am not finding them.

(My business is incorporated as an LLC, and pays me a salary, but is really just me doing consulting for organizations.)

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I am not a business owner….but wouldn’t you have these on your 2020 tax return?

@BelknapPoint

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not in this level of detail

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but, yes, i am likely going to go to the people who helped me do my taxes for help. just wondered if there was guidance on what the form was actually looking for.

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thumper1 tagged me, but I will say I haven’t seen the actual Profile form in several years, and I never used and am not familiar with the Business/Farm Supplement. Have you tried contacting the Profile folks for assistance? They can be hit or miss, but I would start there.

6

On Page 2, section g, it says:
g. Other business expenses (Itemize on page 3 any single item over $1,000.)

So when I had to fill it out, I included the total “Other business expenses” (ie, not items a-f) in “G” and then used page 3 to list single items over $1,000.

Here’s a link to the current form, if anyone is interested (and tagging @BelknapPoint , as I’m not sure if they will be notified by a general response to this thread)

1 Like
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Thanks MMRose, that should be helpful to OP. So page 3 is used to list single business expenses that exceed $1,000.

Is the current and full CSS/Profile form available online in PDF format, without having to register for a College Board account?

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I don’t think so – I’ve looked in the past. I think because it is a “smart” form that bases some questions based on previous answers – and also because different colleges ask for different information.

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It would be nice if the College Board put a PDF version of the current Profile online and accessible by everyone, just like a PDF FAFSA is available, even though the online version of FAFSA is also a “smart” form. I’m talking about the basic Profile, not specifically modified versions as requested by some schools.

1 Like
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My understanding has been that they want broad categories—subcontracted services, pension, meals, office expenses, etc. Not detail at the level of each subcontractor or expense.

I image the goal is to ferret out expenses that should be added back as income but the guidance could definitely be improved.