<p>My parents won't help me. All they gave me is 2011 tax returns, and they have not filed 2012 taxes yet. CSS asks for 2011, 2012, and 2013 estimates. My parents don't know what the value of their pensions are. What the hell am I supposed to do? Hire an accountant with my own money, or get them to make educated guesses?</p>
<p>If they want you to be able to attend college, then they need to be willing to help. They need to find out the value of their pensions, and they to give you that information along with all the values of any other assets they have (including investments).</p>
<p>As for 2012 taxes, most people haven’t completed those yet . . . but your parents need to tell you if 2012 was more or less similar to 2011. If it wasn’t, you need to know!</p>
<p>The problem with “educated guesses” is that, if you get admitted to School X and it offers you a generous financial aid award, but asks for documentation to support what you entered on the CSS . . . what happens if those guesses end up being way off? Your award could end up getting cut drastically. Or, alternatively, you might end up with a much smaller award than you’d otherwise be entitled to, if they guessed wrong in the other direction.</p>
<p>If that’s the best they can do right now, then so be it. But within the next couple of weeks, you should get them to help you gather the documentation to verify all the figures. And, if anything is wrong, you’ll need to send a corrected copy of the CSS to your schools.</p>
<p>Where are there pensions? With a company or in an IRA? Find out and then write a note asking for the present value of the them, and for the bank or company contact to give you an estimate. Then just increase it by about 10% each year for the estimates. Your parents’ W2s should be coming soon and that would serve as the cornerstone for 2012. Just use 2011 values where you don’t know and use the same numbers for 2013 estimates. The piece of info you will need are the assets as of the day you fill out the form. Make sure you don’t fill it out on a day when your parents have a lot of money just sitting in the accounts, like pay day or if they are holding proceeds from an insurance claim for their roof. Also if you have any assets in an account, it might be wise for you to open an account joint a parent but with the parent name and ssn used primary since any money/assets you have on that day are hit a lot harder (20% straight onto the expected contribution) whereas your parents have some asset protection and are hit up about 5.6% on the excess. </p>
<p>Are you going to be required to do the FAFSA too? It will be a zip after the PROFILE and just do the same day. Get those PINs asap.</p>
<p>I believe the CSS has a worksheet that you can print out. I am not exactly sure where this option is, but I would suggest you print one out. You can go through it initially and write in the answers for the questions you have information for and then sit down with your parents and go through the questions you need their help answering. This way you can let them know eveything you will need all at once.</p>