<p>We did the CSS in January and just finished taxes last night. Our estimate for income was only a few dollars off. The one area that was about $1000 off was deductions because we hadn't realized that, now that our son is 17, we can't claim him as a deduction. Everything else on the Profile is good to go.</p>
<p>What now? Do I print a copy of the Profile and send it with the $1000 change to every school? Do I send a copy of our taxes to all Profile schools? Two of the schools are IDOC schools and they are already getting a copy of our taxes already. My son's SCEA school is getting a copy of our taxes. </p>
<p>So, what about the rest? For some reason, I'm not finding the info on at least one of the college's sites. Should I just call their f. aid offices and ask about sending in taxes and an updated copy of the Profile with the change in deductions?</p>
<p>Your son is only 17? Of course you can count him as a dependent, and take a deduction if you provide for him. Why wouldn’t you? Is he a student? You will be able to claim him as a dependent on taxes all through his college years. Does he work? Is he taking himself as a deduction? That may not be worth it. You can claim him and give him the taxes he saves you if you wanted to help him.</p>
<p>Oh, I said that wrong. I think my dh said we can’t get a tax credit (or something like that?) now that he’s 17. Yes, we still claim him as a deduction but I think it was a credit or something like that. He’s not home right now so I can’t ask him but there was some change of credit for kids 17 and over.</p>
<p>We did file the FAFSA in January. I just went to the site to try and update but it’s down for maintenance.</p>
<p>I believe that what the OP means is that once the child is 17, you can no longer take the child tax credit. We found that too as we were doing our taxes (Turbo Tax). 17 year old is still a dependent, though.</p>
<p>For Profile schools, you should call the FA office and let them know of the update/change. They will tell you whether or not anything is required to be mailed. You won’t send any tax documents to any schools except the schools that request them. Hold onto a couple extra copies, though, in case requests do come in. Update your FAFSA if needed as well.</p>
<p>^ right now, you will need to wait 2 weeks to update the FAFSA (in order to be able to link to the IRS site), from my understanding. I know that I’m waiting another week in order for that to work, as we efiled just a week ago.</p>
<p>Oh, I didn’t know that the FAFSA links to the IRS. So, crazymomster, you’re saying that it takes 2 weeks for our tax info to be ready to be downloaded (or whatever the term is)? And after the two weeks, when I update the FAFSA, it will automatically take the info from the IRS? That would be nice.</p>
<p>I’m trying to send documents via email to one school. (Documents include tax returns and copies of all W-2s for us, the parents, and for my son) The scanned copies of the
W-2s are apparently such large files, I can’t send it all in one email. I tried using my cute pdf converter but the file actually was bigger than the jpeg. </p>
<p>Should I send some info by email and some by snail mail or will that be too confusing? I don’t want to send taxes by snail mail since this school seems to want every document that goes with the taxes (and our taxes alone are 20 pages according to Turbo Tax).</p>
<p>If it’s 20 pages and going to take multiple emails, I would just copy/reprint them and take it to the post office for mailing. Make sure you sign your tax return!</p>
<p>If we filed electronically, do we need to sign them if we’re sending them by computer? That confused me. My son’s taxes have a page saying no signature is necessary because he e-filed.</p>
<p>I don’t have a fax machine and I think it costs an arm and a leg at FedEx-Kinkos. I called one school and they said I can do some by email (the taxes) and others by snail mail (the W-2s). She didn’t sound thrilled but oh well. :-(</p>
<p>Yes, even if you e-filed you’re generally required to sign the documents you’re sending to FA offices. The “signature not required” is for IRS purposes because you e-signed with a pin and verification But the schools have no record of that electronic signature.</p>
<p>ALWAYS sign those tax forms for financial aid offices, even if you filed electronically and did not need to sign on paper in “real, tax” life. I can’t tell you how many tax forms I have seen returned to students, delaying the processing and awarding, because the forms were not signed.</p>