<p>for parent's 2004 untaxed income and benefits (#47 on CSS), the worksheet provided lists Social security benefits received for all family members except student, then the second line is social security benefits received for student.</p>
<p>Are these payments made to the parents BECAUSE OF the student? Or payments made out TO/FOR the student?</p>
<p>I already listed the same benefits in student's 2005 untaxed income and benefits (#13a on CSS). I know they are different years, but the checks are supposed to be in my name.</p>
<p>I'm confused about the technicality of the wording, and in no way does my mother know what to put... help!!?</p>
<p>
[quote] Untaxed Social Security benefits. If Social Security benefits were paid to your parents on your behalf (because you were under 18 years old at the time), those benefits are reported as your parents' income, not your income.
<p>Since the due date for a lot of schools is 2/1, will they be downloading my old one or my corrected one? Will FAFSA tell them that there is an updated version if they've already downloaded my old one?</p>
<p>Also, how do I correct the CSS profile? I'm thinking about sending each of the schools a letter with the corrections, since that is what collegeboard implied, but there's no way for me to confirm that they got the corrections, or if they changed them in their database...</p>
<p>The colleges know to download updates-- you don't have to tell them, they can figure it out all by themselves. I have no idea how it really works, but my guess is that they use the info they have on 2/1 (or a few days after) to set up files for students -- then they check for updated information on all of those students in late March, right before the admissions decisions go out. They probably have sophisticated computer programs that can plug in data for all their students simultaneously - so it may simply be a matter of running the program and printing out results. </p>
<p>There is no way to correct the CSS/Profile - the procedure is to notify the colleges, but you don't have to do that for income information that is included on the FAFSA. You would only need to do that for a correction to information that is specific to the Profile -- for example, if you listed your parents home equity as $400K and then the house burned down, you'd let the colleges know that the equity figure had changed. (Sorry for such a disastrous scenario, its just the first thing that came into my mind).</p>
<p>I really hope you're right, Calmom, since there were some pretty big differences between my parents' 2005 estimated incomes on the CSS and the actual 2005 incomes on the FAFSA.</p>
<p>Call the colleges re: correcting the Profile. We were told by our two that we needed to print out the one we did with the estimates, hand write the corrections, and mail it to the finaid office. Oh...and in our case, we have on additional Profile to submit...and YES we will be paying $18 for the one with the wrong info on it, then printing that out and making the corrections on it and mailing it to the college. CALL the finaid office at the college(s) you will be sending the corrected Profile to...they will tell you what they want. In my humble opinion...two things should be happening...</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Finaid deadlines should be Feb 15 so that folks have time to DO their taxes and do not have to amend (for both the PROFILE and the FAFSA). Let's face it...they aren't making the final finaid awards based on estimates anyway.</p></li>
<li><p>The College Board should have a way for families to amend the Profile ONE time online after their taxes are done. For all the money we pay them, it wouldn't be too much to ask for one chance to amend and have resubmitted. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>The colleges ultimately draw all info from the FAFSA-- if there is an inconsistency between FAFSA and Profile, they will take it from the latest FAFSA. They HAVE to rely on those numbers in terms of meeting federal requirements for loans and work study. In other words, they can't give you a finaid package including a $2500 Stafford loan based on Profile info if the FAFSA shows you are not eligible. </p>
<p>Also, CSS is a private organization and there is not much anyone can do about it if you lie on the form, unless and until you actually receive aid dollars based on that. On the other hand, it is a federal offense to lie on the FAFSA, and the government has the ability to use info directly from your tax returns to verify accuracy. So basically, if there is conflicting data, the FAFSA is far more likely to be accurate. </p>
<p>The one area where this might not be the case would be your reporting assets. If you reported that you had $100K in savings on the Profile, and then on the FAFSA you say you have $30K in the bank... that's kind of a red flag for the college to ask what happened to the other $70K. So if there is some major bona fide expense that came up -- you might want to write to the colleges to explain what that was.</p>
<p>In any case, if you have doubts, it doesn't hurt to write a letter to the college. Most colleges do ask to see your tax returns, so that is another way that they have of determining actual income. If you fail to correct your FAFSA but send your tax return to the college, the colleges actually may enter the corrections for you.</p>