Filling out the international CSS profile is a nightmare

Paying for College
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I’m trying to fill out the CSS form with my mom and I just keep getting frustrated with it. I’d really appreciate some help with the thing and I’ll try my best to constrain myself from turning this post into a rant. Also, if my English is weird and not grammatically correct, apologies. I’ve been sitting here for far too long and my brain is melting.

Questions:
“Current value of tax-deferred retirement, pension, annuity, and savings plans*” - What does it mean? I’m guessing it means the total amount of money put into the retirement plan in which case I have no idea what to input since it doesn’t work like that, where I’m from. Here, after you retire you just receive some sum of money every month until you die.

In the Tax Return window in “Wages, salaries, commissions, and tips” and “Dividend income” do I type in gross or net value?

Also what should I write in “Itemize the sources and amounts for the taxes and withholdings amount entered above”. I thought I just needed to specify how the money in the taxes field is spread between institutions but the box is really small, like for inputting a mere number.

My mom bought a flat. She is technically the owner of her part of the building but she still pays rent to the original property owner. Do I select “own home” and include the rent in “Monthly housing payment”, or should I do something else?

“Home purchase price” - when we bought the flat there was nothing in it, (just walls, windows and a concrete floor), so we had to put a lot of money into furnishing it. Do I include the money spent on finishing the flat or just input the sum paid for the flat to the developer?

How important is it for all the numbers I input to be exact and correct? Because, the only specific, exact sums I’m sure about are income and taxes, the rest are very rough estimates. Do colleges check these things?

In the “How much does the student expect to receive from the following sources to pay for educational expenses for the 2019-20 academic year?” question, in the “Other relatives (and any other sources) to help pay for college expenses” box do I include the non-custodial parent?

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If your parents don’t have tax deferred retirement accounts…then yo7 put $0.

Wages, salaries etc are the gross amount your parent received in 2017.

Dividend income is the exact dollar amount of any dividend income they received in 2017.

What question # is this on the Profile?

If she owns…she owns…and you put OWN. It sounds like your mom is purchasing from the flat owner…you need to ask her the details.

You do not include the cost of furnishings.

It’s important they be accurate. You should be able to find out dividends received by looking online. What would be rough estimates?

Hmmm…your non-custodial parent will be likely required to complete his own form. Perhaps someone else can answer this one.

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12 on the "Parent Non-US Tax Return". It pops up after you enter something into the tax box(#11)

I’m sorry I wasn’t clear. The dividends would be exact (at least I think so, it’s not my mom who receives dividends, it’s my dad and I’ll be filling his form later on). The numbers I’d be approximating are house value and purchase price, car value and purchase price, assets (available money), my earnings (I don’t have a tax return) and basically all expenses. By rough estimates, I mean that for example I type in 20k PLN spent on food but it might as well be anything between about 15k-25k.

Yes, my dad will be completing his own form, so I don’t know whether to enter his support here as well or just on his form.

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There’s a conflict here.

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I meant I will be completing his own form for him (he doesn’t speak any English). He’s got a separate account.

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Do the best you can with car costs, and food.

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@thumper1 You are a treasure when it comes to complicated questions like this!

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When answering the supplemental questions from specific colleges, do I include the non-custodial parent? For example:

My dad’s form doesn’t have any supplemental questions.

I know it says “either parent” but earlier in the profile it was specified that this form is just for the student and the custodial parent

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@thumper1 I have my own CSS profile questions,want to take a look? 1) Under retirement assets, would we include inherited IRAs? 2) We have another child already in college. We pay her tuition (full cost-scholarship) from her 529. Do we enter that amount as “Total educational expenses paid by student’s parent(s)?” even though its coming from a 529? 3) Does the son who is applying put the value of his 529 in Student Assets, or does this go in Parent Assets? Thanks!

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You should start your own thread, especially since based on your questions it looks like you aren’t completing the international Profile.

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Hello, what did you write on “Itemize the sources and amounts for the taxes and withholdings amount entered above”. I don’t have any idea on this question for 3 days. I am a Korean, the father of a student who is trying to apply to colleges in the usa. Please help me.

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I tried my best to break down the total amount of money paid to the state into categories like PIT (personal income tax) retirement funds etc. No idea if it was the right way to do it though.

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offtopic update comment
For those who helped me and are interested how things went I’ll do an update here since my main thread was closed.

I didn’t get in to any of the schools. I believe Hamilton College and Franklin & Marshall put me on the reserves but it didn’t go anywhere. Kinda sucks I know but I never hoped for much - after all schools I applied to were either the most competetive ones in the world or slightly less competetive but way beyond my ability to pay. I got quite good scores on my polish tests and ended up pursuing a Computer Science degree here.

Huge thanks to everyone who helped me, I and surely many other international students would get completely overwhelmed by the college admission process without you guys.