<p>I am one of the unlucky 1 out of 3 people chosen by my daughter's school for verification.</p>
<p>I have been out of work for the past three years and my wife did not work as well so we have no real income for the current 2011 tax year. However, we still of course have to file a 1040 since we do have interest income from our investments and our bank account which we are living off of, albeit it is decreasing rapidly.</p>
<p>When we filed the FASFA form I estimated what we would have at the end of the 2011 year and I was pretty well on the mark (easy if you are not making anything).</p>
<p>I have no issue with giving the college a copy of my 1040 except for one thing. This year I rolled over my 401K from my old employer's financial institution to another broker.
So, my 401K is now visible on the 1040 line 15a, but of course not 15b as it is not income. The issue I have is now the college can see the amount I have for retirement. Hopefully, I will not have to touch this for some time.
My questions are:</p>
<p>Will this effect my daughter's current allocation from the college?
Can I remove it from the 1040 since it does not effect my income in any way?
Can they force you use your 401K? It was my understanding that they do not count your 401K against you getting aid from the school.</p>
<p>I need to get the information back to the college within a few days. Again, I have no problem with anything else they have asked for. I just don't want them to know about my retirement savings. To me, it is a matter of privacy. Any help you all can give me would be greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>Hummm… I thought you had to let colleges know what you have in your retirement account whether or not you have any income coming into your poskets or your retirement account. I mean, it’s still money and investments that you own. Not admitting to having it is kinda like hiding it, isn’t it? (I’m not being coy. I just don’t know.)</p>
<p>Can you use the data retrieval tool? That will pull in just enough to verify earnings and leave your retirement rollover alone.</p>
<p>If you can’t use the tool, you will probably have to send a tax tanscript, not just a copy of your 1040. Either way, no, you may not alter the document or you will raise more red flags than you hope to avoid. FAFSA only schools are not supposed to consider retirement assests in retirement accounts (401K, 403B, etc). Profile schools get to consider whatever they want.</p>
<p>No, it is not part of the FASFA, so it is not a matter of hding it.</p>
<p>It was not part of my 2010 1040, as I didn’t roll it over to the new financial institution until 2011. This is not a CSS college, where you do have to report it.</p>
<p>Hopefully, I would not touch this until retire, but, given the prospects of getting a job things do not look good. Once I start using it however, it does become part of income and I must report it.</p>
<p>My question is, now that I have it listed as a rollover on my 2011 1040, and they will see it, although it is not income can they force me to use it. I don’t believe they can, but I am not sure.</p>
<p>This is a FASFA only school, as we applied for early admission. They were only interested in our 2010 and 2011 1040 information.</p>
<p>I gave them my 2010 1040 forms and estimated my 2011 1040.</p>
<p>I now have to give them my 2011 1040 which is ok except the fact that I rolled over my former employer’s 401K to a new broker and had to show the rollover on the 2011 line 15a 1040 form. It is not income and hopefully do not plan to use it until I retire. I don’t believe they can force me to use it early. What I need to know is how it will effect, if any, my daughter’s current allocation of funds from the school. </p>
<p>I don’t know your answer, but if they decide to deny you and not receiving the FA puts the school out of reach you should at least consider up a plan B.</p>
<p>If the college is FAFSA-only, the information about your rolled-over retirement account won’t be relevant, and won’t affect financial aid. I wouldn’t worry about it.</p>
<p>The people at FAFSA schools aren’t stupid. They know people have retirement accounts, long-term investments that produce little current income, valuable businesses that operate at a tax loss, and houses with substantial unrealized equity gains. They choose not to condition financial aid on any of that stuff.</p>
<p>And one reason why they do that is because they don’t actually provide that much aid. By and large, the colleges that meet full financial need for all students require extensive information about asset values. I don’t have encyclopedic knowledge about this topic, but my sense is that FAFSA-only colleges are mainly administering governmental aid programs that are 100% income-based. It’s not the colleges’ money, so all they care about is whether the program criteria are met (and whether they are likely to get sued for misapplying those criteria). They WANT you to get the aid, and have no interest in withholding it on criteria they aren’t required to use.</p>
<p>Its fine, don’t stress it. Just give them a copy of your tax forms, that should clear it up. I was chosen last year to do this and that cleared it up.</p>
<p>OP- write an explanatory note and then send off the tax forms.</p>
<p>The college needs to be in compliance- that’s all- and you were randomly chosen for the audit. Just in case the form itself isn’t clear, the note (which explains the roll-over, that you are unemployed, etc.) will make it explicit.</p>
<p>They are not looking for reasons to cut or deny you aid; they are creating a statistical snapshot which shows that the money is going to people who meet the previously articulated criteria.</p>
<p>^ Yes, and since your income puts you in Pell Grant territory, they have to follow the federal rules when doling out the federal portion of your aid package (Pell, SEOG, Stafford, Perkins, work study, etc.). They have no discretion in this area, unless you apply for and are considered for one of the “professional judgment” exceptions.</p>
<p>I don’t think rolling over the 401K is relevant at all… even for a profile school. It’s just a matter of moving an asset from one account to another. It didn’t change whether it was there in retirement account or not. FAFSA only schools really won’t look at it or care. Lots of people who verify have things like this - just be honest.</p>