Hi, I completed CSS Profile registration for my daughter (college bound this Fall), and made an apparently critical error in answering this question: “Has the student completed an income tax return for the 2014 tax year?” Since my daughter worked a lot in 2014 I assumed she’d be filling out her own 1040EZ, but realized later that as she is still a dependent she will not file (she didn’t earn the minimum income to be considered to file anyway).
That seems to have made the CSS Profile format tailored towards an independent student - there are no questions about parent income, etc. I can tell the Profile format is all wrong, but can’t fix it.
Any thoughts?
I think you did something else to trigger the independent status…tax filing status would not do this.
Even if she is a dependent, and doesn’t have to file, she CAN still file a 1040 EZ. It will take about five minutes to do.
Did she have any taxes withheld from her earnings? She might want to file that 1040ez to get that money refunded to her.
I agree it isn’t the tax filing question that made the profile think she is independent. There must have been something else that did that. If you can, look back at other questions about guardianship, marriage, age, military service or something like that. Those are the types of questions that would get profile going in the independent direction.
At any point, did you put that your daughter had dependents? That would trigger independent status too.