<p>My husband is self-employed. He files two schedule C's for 2 separate endeavors. One of them is for a new LLC with no income yet (just started up in November, so he had legal fees to create the LLC but has not had any money coming in yet). The other is not an LLC at all, and he gets 1099-miscs for much of his income, and also gets some income from online sales of physical and electronic books. (Inventory of physical books is under $1K)</p>
<p>When we filled out CSS Profile, we filled in his business information as two businesses in the Business Assets (BA) section. </p>
<p>Now I'm seeing references to the Business/Farm supplement on here and am getting a bit worried. Is that an IDOC thing or a CSS Profile thing? Is it up to the schools whether we need to file it? I double-checked with my son's two IDOC schools and one says you have to file it if you didn't put your information into the business assets section of the Profile, but since we did I think we're ok there. The other IDOC school doesn't mention it. It was not mentioned in our IDOC instructions. So if it's an IDOC thing I think we're ok. If it's a Profile thing I guess I need to check with all my son's other Profile schools to make sure they didn't require it. </p>
<p>If it was required and I neglected to file it, I guess I would just send it to the schools that need it, along with any changes we have to make (there may not be any -- I think I got the correct final numbers in) when we file our taxes next week. </p>
<p>Can anyone clarify anything about this form?</p>
<p>I did check all 6 financial aid websites for my son’s schools that require the Profile. Only one mentioned the Business/Farm supplement, and that one was the one that said we only had to file it if we didn’t fill in the BA section on the Profile (though I don’t know how that would/could happen if you filled out the Profile correctly).</p>
<p>So I think we’re in the clear here, but I would love to hear from anyone who knows more about this. Thanks!</p>
<p>I think if you checked all the school websites, you should be fine. One of my son’s schools (Profile) required it to be sent directly to them, and it was listed in our iDoc inventory, so it’s pretty clear that we need to do it. While the depreciation and wage callouts on the Business/Farm form are kind of alarming, they have all of that info anyway from your Schedule Cs. It is what it is.</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, my daughter attended a Profile school (she was a freshman six years ago) and her FAFSA EFC was always within a few dollars of the school’s EFC. Your (kiddo’s) mileage may vary.</p>
<p>It varies and depends on individual school policy. Be aware that even if they do not ask for the business/farm supplement, they still may want full tax returns and they may make their own adjustments based on the schedule C – including adding back in deductions. The new business with the legal expenses but no income could be a problem for financial aid --they may simply add whatever those expenses were back into the mix, since it looks kind of iffy from a financial aid standpoint. If the expenses are relatively small, then it might not make much of a difference in your award – but if it’s a big expense you could end up with financial aid awards that are all over the map. </p>
<p>If there was a compelling and sympathetic reason for your husband to start a new business and incur major start-up costs in November the year before a kid is heading off to college, you might want to be proactive and write a “special circumstances” letter to the college financial aid offices ahead of time.</p>
<p>I just submitted the business/farm supplement at the request of one of my daughter’s colleges. It was not originally listed as a requirement by the college. At another university, I sent in a special circumstances letter and they asked for 6 other pieces of documentation. So, I think each school is different. As long as you send in what they request by the deadline, you should be OK. The process appears to have a lot of back and forth. I’ve been pleasantly surprised so far about how quickly the schools have responded to my emails.</p>