Is your father providing ANY financial support to your family here…you and your mom? Do they have a joint account from which your mom is able to withdraw funds.
OR has he left you high and dry financially for day to day living expenses as well?
The marital status on the FAFSA is as of the date of filing it.
It’s very possible that your parents are currently separated. BUT…your mom will likely need to provide documentation of this if her tax return says “married filing separately”…and it sounds like that documentation might be a challenge.
Talk to your financial aid office.
I disagree with @thumper1 on this. One of the most common reason for ‘married filing separately’ is that the couple is actually separated and don’t want the legal responsibility of filing jointly. They are legally married but living separate financial lives (and maybe separate lives).
The mother has the tax filing. It has the status of ‘married filing separately.’ She can get that on the tax transcript. The documentation is already there.
@twoinanddone
I agree with you…married filing separately is probably the right choice. BUT this is a continuing student whose parents were married when they filed last year…same tax filing status…except they had the dad’s info. It is VERY possible that the school will want some kind of documentation that they are REALLY separated.
There are many married folks living together who file separately for one reason or another. This does not exclude the second parent from being ON the FAFSA and Profile forms.
There are those who choose to file as ‘married filing separately.’ Some do it for personal reasons (just don’t trust the other spouse) but most do it for a financial advantage because of very lopsided income, or because one has medical expenses that allow for a big deduction if there is just one income. It is usually NOT a financial advantage, and the parents do give up certain credits by filing this way.
If the father lives there, and the mother is okay with the father just disappearing for months at a time yet considers the marriage intact, the FAFSA definitions would say they are a two parent family and the OP would have to file the FAFSA with both incomes. The OP would have to estimate the father’s income. There would be no way to verify that income. The school would have to use professional judgment OR just award the school aid/merit and leave the federal aid off… The school has the right to do that as it is just the school’s money being awarded.
I think the OP should either have the mother file the FAFSA as single parent household (that the father does NOT presently live there) or just go talk to the school about the situation.
This sounds like dad thinks he’s separated. He left the country w/o telling the mom. Who does that??