I called my dad and I told him that the non custodial CSS profile was due. He offered to tell me the information over the phone and I could enter it in. He didn’t know a lot of the tax info so I put the salary in a tax calculator and used the info from that. My stepmom says its fraud. Is it?
The NCP profile is set up to be done by the NCP because normally divorced parents don’t want the other parent to know the details of their financial situation. Your dad doesn’t seem to care if your mom knows his info or he trusts you not to tell her. I don’t know the details of how the NCP profile works but I would think at some point that you have to attest to the fact that it is the NCP filling it out. That’s kind of a fuzzy area, similar to the fafsa where sometimes parents will do the entire fafsa by themselves and get a pin and sign as the student. It’s sort of like forgery IMO.
As to the financial info he gave you, at this point 2014 income info can only be estimated. If he gave you some numbers and you estimated tax owed and some other numbers based on a tax calculator, that’s probably ok as an estimate. In February when you have to send in tax documents that should all work out in the end, any award based on your estimates will be an estimated award and when the final documents are sent in, the award will be adjusted.
I wouldn’t call it outright fraud if you are providing all the information the NCP profile asks for, are making a reasonable estimate now and provide all the documentation needed in February. Signing as your dad is questionable though IMO, but if he doesn’t want to do it himself, you don’t have a lot of choice I guess.
how important is the form?
How important is the non-custodial parent form?
Well…if your colleges require it, they will NOT process your application for institutional need based aid until it is received.
If the school requires it, you won’t get institutional aid without it.