-For student income will I have to report income that I made prior to turning 18? Because I used to be a manager at auntie Anne’s in the mall. Also I did print & film work. I occasionally get residual checks from stuff I shot when I was like 8 🤷
But overall I have not worked officially since I turned 18.
Also another question popped up.
At the beginning of quarantine my dad borrowed from his 401K to keep us a float. It was to prevent my parentsfrom defaulting on loans/bills So it’s not like we have a pile of money as reflected in the totals that they want from checking and saving. Will there be a box for explaining our situation at some point in the FAFSA because we cannot skip ahead to see?
If you are completing the FAFSA for the 2021-2022 academic year, you will need to report any income that the student received in 2019, regardless of how old the student was when that income was received.
There is no separate explanatory section on the FAFSA, but you can always communicate with college financial aid offices to explain unusual circumstances that can’t be communicated on FAFSA. Here is the PDF version of the 2021-2022 FAFSA, so you can “skip ahead” and see all the information that is requested:
Thank you for your help. This FASFA thing makes me want to cry. My dad has a short fuse and about ready to tell me to shove the FASFA up my @$$ . I need to hurry up and get through this. So I never filed taxes last year because of my age and was told the threashhold was $12,000 for single under 65 🤷.
Generally, if you were claimed as a dependent on someone else’s 2019 tax return and you were single, your standard deduction was the larger of either:
If you had earned income, the amount of your 2019 earned income plus $350, up to a maximum of $12,200,
or
$1,100
If the standard deduction covered all of your 2019 earned and unearned income (like bank interest), you were not required to file a federal tax return, although if you had any federal tax withheld from your pay you should have filed to get that withholding back. However: not being required to file a federal tax return does not mean that the 2019 income does not need to be reported on FAFSA.
Note that there may be “kiddie tax” implications for a student who is a tax dependent, depending on the amount of any unearned income, and it gets even more confusing because for the IRS the term “unearned income” has different meanings in different situations. None of this should be construed as tax advice, and you should always consult a reputable tax advisor if you need tax assistance.
Every one of my kids gets back a small refund check (several hundred) for taxes being withheld that they did not end up owing; none made more than several thousand a year as teens. Don’t miss out on that money.
Thanks for that. My family is overall supportive of my achievements,however they’re very dysfunctional. I’m also first gen college. I’m just overall lost and my guidance counselor is so elusive these days. My school district is 100% virtual till March.
. I need to hurry up and get through this. So I never filed taxes last year because of my age and was told the threashhold was $12,000 for single under 65 🤷.