Sorry I am new to this and wasn’t able to find another thread on this topic.
Here’s the situation: I have two step siblings in college, 3 siblings in grade/high school and I will be going to college in 2018. I’m not sure if this is relevant but my mom claims my brother and I and on her taxes, and my father claims our two younger siblings. My step mom recently mentioned that on the FAFSA she counted 6 people in her household (my stepmom, father, two step siblings and the two two siblings they claimed on their taxes) even though we live with our mom more than 50% of the year. My step mom said that they were able to do this because my dad pays child support. This didn’t make sense to me because our mom is our custodial parent and, as far as I know, provides more than 50% of our support. Under the weird and unlikely circumstances that my dad is providing more than 50% of our support through child support, would that mean I have to report his information on the FAFSA? Also, back to my main question, I don’t really care if she’s potentially cacluating her household wrong on her FAFSA, but what I am worried about is when I do the FAFSA and try to count all my siblings as a part of my mom’s household while they’re already technically accounted for in another household, will this be a problem?
Claiming dependents for taxes has nothing to with counting them for FAFSA as members of the household. You count the kids who lived in the house more than 50% of the days in the 12 month period that ends on the day the FAFSA is submitted.
Ok thank you for clearing that up! Do you know if there would be an issue when I try to report my mom’s household since my two siblings are already accounted for in my dad’s household when they should be in my mom’s?
No. Count those in your household (mother’s house). Even if your father claimed you on his taxes, which is allowed if that’s their arrangement, you answer the questions on the FAFSA as they pertain to you.
If they caught it—which I highly doubt—I think your dad would be the one who would have to drop your two siblings from your step-siblings’ Fafsa because he’s the one who is inaccurately reporting them. If you just report everything correctly, you have nothing to worry about. Oh, and in answer to your other question, you do not have to report the income of your non-custodial parent on the Fafsa. However, you will have to report it on the CSS Profile if you apply to any schools that require that form for financial aid.
The reference above is for the household size of an independent student, not for the household size of the parent of a dependent student. For dependent students, it is:
How many people are in your parents’ household?
Include:
• yourself, even if you don’t live with your parents,
• your parents,
• your parents’ other children (even if they do not live with your parents) if (a) your parents will provide more than half of their support between July 1, 2017 and June 30, 2018, or (b) the children could answer “No” to every question in Step Three on page 5 of this form, and
• other people if they now live with your parents, your parents provide more than half of their support and your parents will continue to provide more than half of their support between July 1, 2017 and June 30, 2018.
But notice that the caveat about support is related to other children who do not live with the parents, not about children who do live with the parents. The number of days test still rules for dependent students (these children therefore “live with their parents,” so the support test doesn’t kick in). This is in the instructions section:
If your parents are divorced or separated, answer the questions about the parent you lived with more during the past 12 months. (If you did not live with one parent more than the other, give answers about
the parent who provided more financial support during the past 12 months or during the most recent year that you actually received support from a parent.) If this parent is remarried as of today, answer the questions about that parent and your stepparent.