<p>Hi everyone,</p>
<p>I need your help. </p>
<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>You need to send your daughter’s school EVERYTHING they request and do so ASAP. I don’t believe you can remove your rollover from your taxes…you actually did roll it over. How could you just “remove” it? If you rolled it over into another tax deferred account you have no issues. It’s just a number that appears on your taxes (we did the same thing one year…it isn’t income unless you take it OUT of tax deferred accounts).</p>
<p>Hi Thumber1,</p>
<p>Yes all we did is roll it over as you did. And, it is just a number.</p>
<p>I was just worred that they might look at the aid that she received and say we need to use our retirement (401K) money to supplement. Heck, it took us 35 years to save that money and I am finding it next to impossible to find work given the timing and my age.</p>
<p>We lost our eldest daughter not too long ago and we are just righting the ship for our youngest to help her move forward.</p>
<p>Thanks fo your help.</p>
<p>Steven58</p>
<p>The FAFSA formulas do not take the balances IN your retirement accounts into consideration when need based aid is calculated. You didn’t put NEW money into this account…you rolled it over into another tax deferred account.</p>
<p>It is what it is. Please don’t delay sending the info to the college for verification. The school will not disburse money for need based aid until the verification process is completed.</p>
<p>hopefully kelsmom will post on here. she has tons of experience with this sort of thing</p>
<p>I assume your tax return clearly states “Rollover.” Financial aid officers look for that when they verify. If not, provide the school with paperwork proving that you rolled all the money over into your 401k. Add that and a note with the information you submit. Rollover amounts are not considered … but if the aid officer does not know for a fact that it was a rollover, she has to put it into untaxed income when she verifies. I have called parents who had amounts on 15a but no “rollover” indicated. Some gave me paperwork to show the rollover occurred, but I found that others had actually taken a distribution & I had to put the amount in untaxed income.</p>
<p>You are not expected to cash in the 401k.</p>