<p>A great place to hide money is in retirement accounts. These are not counted as part of assets. Put as much as possible into 401k and IRA accounts. Secondly, one can buy a bigger house as it is not counted in the federal formula. Here are two simple and easy tips to hide money.</p>
<p>I have to tend to agree with Irishforever and really wish the others saying stuff like "stop stealing money from poor kids" and "(you) make me sick" would look at both sides of the picture.
No one wants to take money from poor kids. But those of us that fall between the cracks (don't make enough that the incredible financial burden isn't devastating, yet we make too much for fed. aid), we see those "poor" kids getting whopping financial aid packages, sometimes to very expensive private iniversities. We see ahtletic scholarships out the wazoo. Yet my kid with a 4.0+ and 1400+ SATs had to beg a state school for a small scholarship. The private schools he applied to gave him more substantial money but they are STILL way beyond our financial reach. Isn't it strange that if we were "poorer" he could go to those expensive schools??
With our 1st FAFSA our expected family contribution was over 1/3 (!!!) of our family income and we were not even close to the $200,000 income level someone else mentioned. We have 2 others in college and will have 3 in next year and we still won't get anything to help. Are they NUTS ??? I suppose we could send them to very expensive schools so that we could get some help but isn't that the tail wagging the dog? Or maybe they expect us to sell our home or use our retirement savings and live only on SS when we get old?
Thanks, wyseson, for those good and legal tips but we already put the max in our retirement and moving would cost more than we would save.</p>
<p>We put a considerable amount in our 401 accounts. When we file our taxes that 's a good thing but with the FAFSA then, that untaxed income is added back in to the mix. Which scenario is better for lowering the EFC?</p>
<p>Contributing to either a 401K or a Roth IRA has the same effect on the EFC since the untaxed contributioi is added back into your income. It does not effect the EFC, but a 401 K plan with borrowing provisions offers some more flexibility as you can borrow from it to pay for college tuition rather than withdraw which has the effect of raising your EFC for the subsequent year as that withdrawal is counted as income. If you borrow, and then consider it all a withdrawal senior year, (you do have to read the rules regarding the individual 401 K to see if and how to do this), you won' have any of those "loans" counted as income for EFC purposes.</p>
<p>Or gift all your money to your grandparents and have them pay for college.</p>
<p>If your grandparents or any other relative pay for your college, you must list that in the FAFSA section on "maoney paid on your behalf"</p>
<p>Roth IRAs $ are not deducted from the AGI, so they are not added back in, becasue they already showed up. That money will not be consider as part of your assets though, so for some people that could help. </p>
<p>You can also start a Roth IRA for your working child to remove some funds from their "available" assets. These are also nice retirement planning vehicles, so a smart long-term way to "hide" assets.</p>
<p>No one has mentioned this yet, but another way to legitimately "hide" money is to convert it into personal possessions.</p>
<p>You have to report cash and investments. You do not have to report things that you own. If you have, for example, $10,000 in a savings account, you'll take a hit of 35% if it is the students money and 5% if it is the parent's. If on the other hand the student is going to need a car, computer and decent clothes in college, spend that money on them by the time FAFSA and Profile are submitted.</p>
<p>You know what we should do is sell everything. House, car, furniture. Then we bury the cash in the park and live on the streets for the senior year. It'll be a shoo-in for financial aid!</p>
<p>Do remember that assets are assessed at 5.6%. The greatest determinant of EFC is income. So you might want to quit your job while your kids are in college and live in a shelter. That's gaming the system!</p>
<p>janimom, I have a question on the asset assessment part. If one owe a house with huge home equity(but it does not count in FAFSA) but the twist is one had to move because of job situation and convert one's house into a rental property(asset) while renting would the old house count as home equity or as an asset. If one decide to buy another house but does not sell the old home and the new house does not have a lot of equity compare to the old home, so is it better to sell the old home and convert the equity in the new home?<br>
Has anyone been through similar situation? Thanks for the advice.</p>
<p>Your primary residence--the house where you live is exempt as an asset for FAFSA. The old house would be an asset. The rent you receive will be counted as income. For FAFSA purposes, it would be smarter to take out a large mortgage or home equity loan on the old house so that the asset value is offset by that loan, and use the money for the new house which is exempt for EFC purposes because it is a primary residence. Or sell the old house and use the money to pay as much of the new house. Now bear in mind that many schools do not just use FAFSA, but ask for profile or additonal info, many times it is home equity numbers, and those are the schools that tend to give the best aid packages. So you should not be doing your financial planning based just on possible financial aid. For all the well laid plans, if your kid goes somewhere that does not do things the way you planned, it can go to naught.</p>
<p>Jamimon, sorry for mispelling of your screenname. Thanks for the great advice, "primary residence" was the word I was looking. The way thing looks, we'd probably get zero aid if we keep on working, so no game playing with financial aid. D does not like snow, Ivy school is out of the question, however she does like Stanford, so we shall see. Most likely she will go to some UCs, not sure which.</p>
<p>I suggest University of Miami, Emory, Tulane, Davidson, Wake Forest for some good merit aid possibilities.</p>
<p>D does not like any place too hot either, she prefers cool, lots of rain, like the SF Bay Area. So most likely UC Berkeley/Stanford or most of good school in CA. Do you which one give the best merit aid in CA? She has a high likelyhood of getting very high test score(base on past experience), top 5%.</p>
<p>I have to go to school for 5 year. %yr Bach of Architecture program. After Uni grant that makes my first year about 35k, assuming thats the same for all 5 yrs, we are paying about 175k, or roughly buying our house again. Granted we did buy 16.5 yrs ago. We could not buy our house today, so families around us can afford to send their kids to 40k+ schools, but unfortunatly my family cannot, and will have alarge number of loans. So dont hide money and bear with it. Tough it up and pay up. If we can manage to do it, I think you can! Now, with that said. Anyone know of any good scholarships that I can still apply for? LOL</p>
<p>I am not as familiar with the west coast schools but I have heard that Occidental, Santa Clara are good schools. I suggest you buy the USN%WR Ultimate College Guide at a bookstore. It is a big fat book that gives you all sort of info on many, many colleges. In the front of the book there are lists of the schools that give the best merit/financial aid. You can then look up the schools and get a breakdown on the averages that they give out. That is a good starting point for your search. My brother lives in the Bay Area--you people are so spoiled as far as a wonderful climate! He and his wife do not want to leave because of the weather so I can understand why your D feels that way. You are fortunate to have such a good state school system.</p>
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A great place to hide money is in retirement accounts.
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<p>A great place to hide money is in bluealien01's pocket. It will be safe there.</p>
<p>BTW, Susie, she should look in Oregon. There are many escellent private schools. Linfield, Geaorge Fox, etc... I am from the Portland area and enjoy the more plesant summers than the East Coast. I will be attending USC next year and can't wait to go. I'll have to get use to the weather again, but thats not such a bad thing.</p>
<p>We are NOT trying to "hide" money, but just in case somemom's post above about the requirement to report money paid by others for one's child's college expenses frightened someone else, as it did me, look here for reassurance about 529 accounts held by others: <a href="http://www.finaid.org/savings/loophole.phtml%5B/url%5D">www.finaid.org/savings/loophole.phtml</a></p>
<p>I thought we had inadvertantly done something that would jeopardize our son's scholarship even though we DID report the account on the CSS.</p>
<p>There is nothing wrong with rearranging one's assets favorably as long as it is done legally. Hiding the money under the mattress or giving it to a family member to hold for purposes of evading the financial aid radar is not legal. Not a problem to pay off a mortgage or take one and pay off bills. It is foolish not to spend down the kid's account first since it is assessed at a larger %. Everyone should know the rules so the money can best be allocated where chances for aid are allocated, but it is also important to know what is legit and what is not.</p>