I’m not sure how to help my child fill out the FAFSA in this situation. My husband & I separated in February this year. He has moved in temporarily with our oldest child. Our kids & family do not want us to get divorced to see if we can move past our problems. So, we have not legally filed for separation and at moment do not know when that would happen. Our house is paid for, but my husband still pays for our insurance, power, water bills. I pay everything else. We filed taxes married jointly this year and would probably file married jointly next year too because it works out better.
Since, everything is in both of our names, would we need to file FAFSA as married or separated? I’m confused which to do because I do not want to get in trouble for doing anything wrong.
The child going to college files the fAFSA. She will have the parent she lived with most in the 365 days before filing complete the ‘parent’ section. That parent uses his/her status, which doesn’t have to be the same as the IRS filing status. If it is you, and you are separated, that’s the status. Since you file as ‘married’ you WILL be selected for verification and you will have to prove how much of that money on the tax return (for 2016) was yours. Same with assets, and if you haven’t split the assets yet (still using a joint bank account) you’ll have to report it all. If any of the money he gives you is for child support, you’ll have to report that.