I am going to file the FAFSA for fall 2018 freshmen admission. My dad is a US citizen and was a Guam resident some 6 years ago and mom is an Indian citizen. My dad is unemployed and didn’t file the tax and lives in India with us but mom is employed and we file taxes for the Indian income(her income is approximately 10,000)
Will we have to fill out some form or is there any procedure to become eligible for the financial aid? Am I eligible for the non-filing form?
Are you a US citizen? If so, you may file a FAFSA.
Since you live with both parents, you will include both incomes on the FAFSA, even if your father makes $0. Because your father has a SSN, he can create a FSA ID and sign the form electronically.
The forms are pretty self explanatory. You (student) start a filing. You will need a FSA ID too. When you create it, WRITE DOWN all the clues and passwords carefully. It’s ridiculous how many clue questions you have to put in. You and your father must use different email accounts.
Expect to be selected for verification. They will most likely ask for your mother’s tax work or at least some proof of income. For your father, they may want an IRS statement of non-filer.
Yes, I am a US citizen. Thanks for explaining the procedure!
My parents file taxes in India but not in the US since its an Indian income. Can we explain it in the IRS form?
P.S. I’m unable to edit the post and I thought that when I wrote that “we file taxes for the Indian income”, people will assume that we file the taxes in the US; which we don’t do.
Isn’t there a question on the FAFSA about what kind of tax return the parents filed? There should be an answer for foreign tax return.
You might need to provide a copy and convert the income to US $
Well, I haven’t seen the FAFSA form yet. I just got my FSA ID so was just worried about the tax thing. Anyway thanks for the help!
Here is what you will do when filing the FAFSA (from FAFSA online directions):
If you (and your spouse) or your parents filed (or will file) a foreign tax return, use the information from the foreign tax return to fill out this form. Convert all monetary units to U.S. dollars using the published exchange rate in effect for the date nearest to the date you complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Go to https://federalreserve.gov/releases/h10/current to view the daily exchange rates.
Your parents should include the value of the taxes paid in their country for the U.S. income tax paid question.
The FAFSA will ask you for your income and will ask you if you want to use the IRS retrieval tool to pull the info fromthe IRS’s records. You will answer NO because you (nor parents) filed with the IRS so you have to put in the information manually. Take your parents’ (Indian) tax return for the period in question (remember you are using income from 2016 for this current fafsa), convert it into U$ dollars, and complete the form.