I am a student who didn’t make enough to file taxes. On the CSS verification form, it says that if you did not file taxes but made some earnings, you must submit your W2. However, you must make $600 to get a W2, and I didn’t. The only option left is reporting that I have no earnings, even though on my common app, I did specify that I have a job. I’m pretty sure these will never be cross referenced, but do I have any reason to be concerned? Is it ok that I’m reporting no income even though I made ~$500 in 2018?
No, it’s not ok. For need-based financial aid purposes you should report any income from 2018, even if your earnings were not reported on a W-2.
You generally should have received a tax reporting document (either a W-2 or a 1099), and if you didn’t you may still have a tax obligation even if you earned less than $600. Usually, if an employer did not withhold FICA taxes from your pay (this is for the employee part of the contribution to Medicare and Social Security), self-employment tax can be owed. What kind of employer did you have in 2018 and what work did you do?
My employer did withhold taxes. I work for my local town office. As it was explained to me by my mom who is in banking, if you make less than $600, even if you do pay FICA, you will not receive a W2. If I’m supposed to report, where can I do this? The CSS document either lets you select “some income” (and you must then submit a W2) or “no income”.
If you had FICA and/or federal or state income taxes withheld, your employer, even a local government, needs to provide you with the proper documentation, regardless of how much you made.
Are you working on completing CSS Profile? Profile doesn’t “require” the submission of any tax or financial documents; any requirement for such document submissions would be generated by a college. You need to report all 2018 income on Profile. If you can’t pry a W-2 or some other kind of earnings statement from a 2018 employer, notify a requesting college and ask what they want you to do when an employer refuses to provide you with the required documentation.
Sorry if it was unclear, I’m submitting documents to IDOC which I suppose is separate from the CSS profile. The verification form that I need to submit provides the following options to select:
“NO, and I had no earnings from work. Submit a student Non-Tax Filer’s Statement through IDOC. The form is available on the dashboard.
NO, but I had some earnings from work. Submit a student Non-Tax Filer’s Statement through IDOC. The form is available on the dashboard. Be sure to submit all student 2018 W-2 and 2018 1099 forms received.”
This made me think that if I am to report earnings from work on that document, I must submit either a W2 or 1099, which I don’t earn enough to receive. I could submit my paystubs, but I would need to resubmit the non-tax filer’s statement and somehow remove the one that has been processed already. I guess that’s what I’m going to have to do.
First of all, if your earned money in 2018 by working for your local town office, even if it was $1.00, you did earn enough to receive a W-2 or 1099.
“Be sure to submit all student 2018 W-2 and 2018 1099 forms received.” If you didn’t recieve a W-2 or a 1099, you can’t submit one. For the schools that are requesting submission of a W-2 or 1099 for your 2018 wages, either through IDOC or directly to the school, you can explain that the ill-informed people at your local town office have refused to properly do their jobs, and what documentation of your 2018 earnings might be an acceptable substitute as part of your financial aid application (your end-of-year paystub for 2018 might work).
there are minimum thresholds and other conditions that trigger a requirement for an employer to send w2 or 1099. It’s not required in all cases, although if taxes were withheld It’s usually required. You might double check that it wasn’t sent to you online, which is pretty common now.
I did pay FICA taxes, but I’ve been told that my earnings were not above the threshold to receive a W2. Also, I worked at 2 different places in 2018 and I am doubtful that I’ll be able to get my old paystubs from 1 of them. It is only around $500 total from both jobs, but I did list both jobs on my common app and I don’t want to have one of my offers rescinded because I failed to report my income. Is that really a possible scenario? Do I need to email every school I have applied to? From what I understand, it’s impossible to remove documents already processed on the IDOC.
You are wrong. I work for my town as an election moderator. My annual pay is less than $600 a year. I get a W2 form every single year for my earnings.
The town is required to send me this form. They have no idea whether I might have other jobs that will take me above the threshold for filing taxes…and frankly it does not matter. It is their job to send you this form.
I would contact the town office payroll person ASAP, and see if they have a record of sending you a w-2 for 2018. This would have been sent about a year ago. It’s highly likely they will be able to issue you a duplicate…or issue you a w2 if they neglected to do so last year when they were supposed to.
I could probably get a W2 or at the very least, paystubs from my town office for 2018. However, I did work for another business for around a month in 2018 that has since closed. Do you expect that I would be able to get anything from their records? If not, I’m really unsure how I’m supposed to properly report my income. Am I going to be punished for not being able to show proof of the $100 I earned as a 15 year old? The IDOC does not allow for resubmission so I would have to email 12 schools asking for a non-filers form and then explain that I’m missing a paystub for one of my jobs. I am not sure what to do at this point.
For crying out load… report the income. There’s no valid reason not to report it. You don’t have to have a W-2 or any other kind of documentation to substantiate the income in order to report it for financial aid purposes. Just report it as required on FAFSA and Profile.
Perhaps, but if OP was working for a municipal government, I really doubt that any of those minimum thresholds or other conditions apply here. If you disagree, please cite your reference.
You don’t have to get a non-filer’s form from each school. Send ONE to the IRS, they’ll send you a document that says you did not file in 2018 because _______. You give that to the schools through IDOCs or to the schools that ask.
The IDOC Non-Tax Filer’s Statement reads “Please submit supporting documentation for all income sources below…” I was under the impression that to report income, I have to provide documentation. That was the entire premise of my problem - I didn’t have the W2 as proof. If I don’t NEED to verify the income, then I would not have spent time trying to figure out how I’m going to get that documentation, and I don’t understand why you didn’t just say that as soon as you realized that I cannot easily obtain this documentation.
I understand that only one non-filer form is needed. I already submitted my non-filer form via IDOC and they do not allow for removal of documents. For this reason, I believe that I’m going to have to email each school - correct me if I’m wrong.
What you don’t understand is that for financial aid purposes reporting income but not having the requested documentation is a 1 (if that) on a problem scale of 1 to 10. Not reporting legitimate income because you don’t have (or can’t get) the requested documentation is a 10 on a problem scale of 1 to 10.
If not having the requested documentation was a valid reason for not reporting the income, think of all the students and parents who would suddenly “lose” their W-2 forms or claim that the employer never provided anything.
For whatever reason, I doubt that failing to report the $100 I don’t have documentation for is a 10 on any problem scale. Regardless, I take no issue with reporting the income. My conflict was simply how to go about reporting income without documentation. As I understood it, this is disallowed, and furthermore, IDOC does not allow for the removal of documents. This means that I will have to submit another non-tax filer statement with the correct information, and colleges will see both. The College Board provides no solution to this, nor has anyone in this thread, so I suppose I will either let the colleges figure it out for themselves or email each one detailing the mistake.
FWIW, my daughter earned $20 and received a W-2. She did not file taxes but reported the income on both FAFSA and CSS profile. She filled out the non-tax filer statement. I’m very surprised you were not provided a W-2. Do you have a paystub from your last check for the year that you could send in as documentation?
Yes, I could probably get my pay stub from my town office. I don’t expect that I’ll be able to get anything from my other place of work in 2018 unfortunately. My conflict has now become whether to explain either of the following to colleges in an email: 1. lack of documentation and 2. the fact that I uploaded two non-filer tax statements.
How did you come to this understanding? Who says that you shouldn’t report income for need-based financial aid forms absent documentation?
The IRS Verification of Nonfiling simply states that you didn’t file a federal tax return for a certain tax year. All you need to request one is your name, SSN, mailing address and the tax year. There is no financial information required. It’s entirely possible to have income and in the same year not have any obligation to file a tax return. It happens all the time, especially for young people. I’m not getting what your hangup is about this.