<p>I have a 19 year old son who wants to know my inherited stocks and inherited IRA for the FAFSA form. Do ihonestly have to tell the government that? On taxes, i only have to report stocks that i sold as income. I really do not want to tell the govt. how much is in my inherited stocks, since I will not be taking any of them out to pay for my son’s education.</p>
<p>Any IRA stocks, anything in a retirement plan, is NOT reported on FAFSA
Yes. your son does need to report all your assets in order to determine his eligibility for financial aid</p>
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You do not have to tell anyone about them if you do not want to. However, if you want your son to be eligible for some sources of financial aid then you will have to divulge this info … in the case of the FAFSA application and most profile application custodial parent(s) need to provide this information for the student to be eligible for aid. Since these applications are for need based aid understanding the financial position of the custodial parents is required … if you do not want to provide the information (and you are the custodial parent) then do not have your son apply for need based aid.</p>
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Even if you do not plan to use your stocks to help pay for your son’s education, both the government and the school will take the value of the stocks into account when determining how much aid he is (or is not) eligible for. If you are not willing to provide your financial information then that will mean your son will not be considered for aid at all.</p>
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Stocks you have sold must be reported on FAFSA (and profile if the school requires it) as income. Stocks you still posses must be reported as assets.</p>
<p>Just to clarify, when stocks are sold only the capital gain - if any - is reported as income. Capital gains increase AGI, while capital losses reduce AGI. Either way, the net amount appears in the AGI which is what’s reported on FAFSA. The stock sale itself isn’t reported separately as income. The net proceeds of the sale are reported as assets (cash).</p>
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Not if the proceeds have been spent by the time FAFSA is filed (which ours always are unfortunately).</p>
<p>Aren’t you all reporting the dividends as income for tax purposes each year? The FAFSA will correspond with that information. The same when you sell a stock or cash in a bond. The realized gain is income just as it has to be reported on tax returns.</p>
<p>As for any stocks, bonds, property, etc, it doesn’;t matter if you aren’t going to use them for college costs. You still have to report them as assets and they are taken into consideration when computing the EFC. You can get the stock and bond values by looking them up on the internet as you complete FAFSA. You can get the values and if it is something that is private with values not available, take the value as of the last time it was established.</p>
<p>If you have to fill out the PROFILE,you have to tell them the value of the silver in your teeth. That form does want the value of your qualified plans as well. They want to know everything, and yes, they often do expect you to cash it in and use it.</p>
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One other comment … parents can fill-in their information into FAFSA separately than the kids … and I believe, if you want to your information can be from your child … the government will see the info but not your child.</p>
<p>^^^I’m not sure that is true. The PIN required to access a FAFSA is the student’s PIN. I am not aware of any way a parent can access the student’s FAFSA without the student’s PIN. Even if the parents go in with the student’s PIN and enters the parent data themselves the student can access the SAR, which will contain the parent data, at any time. As far as I know there is no way to prevent the student seeing the data.</p>
<p>Germanmon, if you have money in inherited stocks that you do not plan to use for your son’s education, why do you think someone else(financial aid) should be paying?</p>
<p>SCM - I think you’re right … my son could see the final SAR which had the summary level info about the parents on it … thanks for the correction.</p>
<p>To SunnyFlorida: Why do you think? Use your common sense. Let your mind think of ALL of the possibilities.</p>
<p>The value of your inherited stocks as well as all of your assets will be taken into consideration for your son;s financial aid. It doesn’t matter whether you are going to use them towards college costs are not. Parents are considered primarily responsible for their kids’ college costs. You don’t pay when you can, they don’t go. Students are limited to borrowing $5500 as freshmen on their own, and if they don’t qualify for need, merit money is really the only other source of funds.</p>
<p>My kids never saw the FAFSAs I completed, because I did them all. Just asked them what they had in their accounts. I knew it wouldn’t matter because we weren’t going to qualify anyways, but if we were, I would have had them pay down their accounts and put equivalent amounts into savings for them so that they would not be assessed the higher student % for their assets. </p>
<p>As a parent, German mom, you are expected to put about 5.6% of your assets towards college after an allowance in an amount I cannot recall. But, yes, those stocks will count as assets.</p>
<p>Common sense tells me if you have assets to pay for college your son will not be eligible for financial aid.</p>