So I filed my FAFSA and I put my mother’s financial info since I live with her, but the thing is my parents are still married but they are living in different places. Is this fraud if I put in FAFSA that they are divorced/separated.
If your parents are not “separated” as that term applies to a marriage, yes, what you describe is fraud.
Do they still want to be a married couple and are living apart for employment reasons or something that doesn’t relate to trouble with their marriage? If so, you should have reported financial information on FAFSA for both parents.
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But the things is that my mom filed for head of household since they been living apart for a whole year.
Also yes they still want to be married but live separately due to some reason but my mom she file head of house hold and my dad I don’t know
What should I do?
Not enough information. It’s very possible that your mom can file as head of household if she fulfills certain criteria.
Re:the FAFSA, if your parents are married and intend to stay married, both parents incomes and assets should be on your fafsa.
What did you put for marital status…because if you put separated or divorced and that’s not accurate, you need to amend that…if you can…and include your othet oarent incime and assets.
@kelsmom can this edit be done?
Yes, the edit can be done. It may or may not prompt selection for verification, depending on the before & after EFC. OP should update the FAFSA right away to reflect the correct situation. IRS data retrieval won’t work in this situation.
You’d have to ask your mother if she considers them having one household. She may be staying married legally for religious, health insurance, personal reasons but consider herself separate for all tax and financial purposes (thus the head of household). Only she can answer the question. Many states don’t have formal steps to be separated.
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Yes, they are married but they are separated due to work, so my question is it considered as one household or two households, because one of my parents are in Puerto Rico and my other is in NYC
twoinanddone is giving you tax advice, but your question is about FAFSA. The answer to your FAFSA question, based on further information you have provided, is that you need to change your FAFSA to report your parents as married and to also report financial information for both of your parents. For FAFSA, for your situation, it doesn’t matter how your mother has filed her taxes, how many households are being maintained or where your parents live.
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Thank you very much, with this advice my worries are gone
@BelknapPoint’s advice is spot-on. I will add that it is very possible that your mother can legally file as head of household if your father has been out of the country for a certain amount of time during the year … but note that I am not saying is IS okay and I am NOT giving any tax advice. I am just pointing out that this is one case where HoH status MAY be acceptable to the IRS (since it usually is not okay for married people to file anything other than married filing separately or married filing jointly and people might jump in saying it’s not okay).
Yes I read up on the conditions that my mom needs to qualify for HoH and she does, so I going to change my fafsa and put in my dad’s info. Thanks for the help
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