My situation is that for many years had both employment income and self-employment income, but no more employment income after early 2017 and none planned for 2018. So my income drops in both 2017 and 2018.
The CSS asks basically for your whole 1040 for 2016. They also ask separately for each parent’s earnings in 2016, and the help screen seems to indicate that here you report W-2 earnings. Not a word about business income.
Then they later ask for expected “earnings from work” for 2017 and 2018, but are vague on what to include, and say nothing specifically about self-employment or business income. There is no separate inquiry for 2017 or 2018 expected business or self-employment income. There is a completely different parental asset section in which business ownership and business income in 2016 is reported.
The conflicting advice I was given was whether to report business income in either the reporting earnings for 2016, or expected earnings in 2017 and 2018. One chat person said yes include the business income. One telephone support person said no do not include the business income, since it is reported separately in the business ownership section. They added that there is no way to report expected business income in 2017 and 2018.
So now I am stuck; all I want to communicate is the lower family income from 2016 to 2017 to 2018.
The “expected earnings” questions ask about income from work in general. In my opinion, this includes W-2 wage income, 1099 self-employment income, business income and any other kind of income that stems from work.
For 2018-2019, you MUST include all income from 2016. You can not use your lower income from 2017 or beyond.
Once you complete your financial aid forms, you can request a special circumstances consideration from each college. You will need to find out each school’s process for this. And also keep in mind, some schools don’t do,these at all…and the ones that do,handle these on a case by case basis.
Your lower income will be used in subsequent years…but for 2018-2019, you MUST report your 2016 income…and you will estimate 2017 and beyond.
2016 of course thats obvious, but CSS also asks about 2017 and 2018, thats where the instructions are poor and I was given completely contradictory advice from their support.
After another call I think I have clarification. For parental earnings in 2016, you take business income and add it to the employment income of one parent or the other. Same thing for expected earnings for 2017 and 2018. This way you can report an employment change that results in income change during the expected future years of college expenses. The form doesn’t quite treat business income fairly-- doesn’t subtract half of self-employment tax and doesn’t subtract Self-employed pension contributions. But they make you report those 401k contributions on wages, so they probably add that back into wage income.
I have the same circumstance like you. Just to make sure I understand correctly. Under “parents earnings” for 2016 you reported your combined W2 and business income.(Total income or AGI?) Then in the expected income for 2017 and 2018 you input again both W2 and business income expected for those years combined, and then later, where they ask if you have a business, you give information about the business income from your 2016 1040? It is really hard to get correct information from them. One lady was explaining to me that if you are self-employed that means you lost your job. I was trying to explain, no not un-employed, but she kept insisting.I have many more questions. For example the medical cost section or the cash gifts that are not assets. Meaning smaller cash gifts for b-day and x-mas from relatives, but the money is spent.etc.etc.
Under the “parent earnings” you put for each parent the W2 earnings and then for the parent in business you add the business income which is line 12 (business) and/or line 18 (farm). Apparently you don’t get credit for the self-employment tax or SEP deduction, but they ask wage earners to report 401k contributions so that probably gets added back for wage earners. The business section later on seems to be more to value the asset of the business, rather than report income, but it seems that you do report it twice. I didn’t see cash gift section but I can’t see why you would mention anything under $1000. I have no idea what they want for medical, they don’t give enough info. Something could be “covered” but you pay a portion out of pocket. My best guess is anything you paid out of pocket is not “covered,” there appears to be a 3% threshold under which they do not let you report. Their chat and phone support people are not very knowledgeable.
It would really help us, if anyone has a question about or problem with a specific Profile question, to tell us exactly which question we should take a look at.