<p>I am need of advise. I am married, but have been separated for a few months now. Our daughter is going to live me (she's a junior in high school.) I am a homemaker. And come this tax season, I obviously am not going to file jointly since I no longer live with my husband, right? Or do I still have to file jointly? </p>
<p>1) Do I have to be legally separated in order for my daughter to file under me alone for financial aid? </p>
<p>2) Does she have to put her father's info even though he will not be claiming her on his taxes? He will not be claiming me either. </p>
<p>3) Do I still have to file jointly (tax wise) even though I am separated? </p>
<p>4) Do I put down the rent money and utility money that he (my husband) is agreeing to pay (verbal agreement and so far he has kept his word.) Or do I leave that out? </p>
<p>No. When you file the FAFSA, which is used to determine your eligibility for federal aid, if you are not living with your spouse, you will only have to report your income.</p>
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<p>It depends on the school. Most FAFSA only schools do not meet 100% demonstrated need. Schools that give large amounts of institutional aid and schools that have opportunity programs for low income students will require the income and assets of both parents. You will have to complete the CSS profile and a non-custodial profile or the college will ask you and your soon to be ex to fill out their own additional financial aid form.</p>
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<p>No</p>
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<p>yes, you must include it on the FAFSA and CSS profile or Institutional financial aid forms</p>
<p>New to this forum - I’ve been doing some financial scheming of late & reading about FAFSA (spare me any moral lectures)</p>
<p>We are married with a child who will enter college in Fall 2013 - our child is very smart with a 4.0 GPA … but no other talents that may garner scholarship monies such as music, sports, …</p>
<p>I make approx 70k in retirement benefits. Spouse makes approx 38k as a teacher … but spouse wants to retire next year and has not been teaching long enough (five years - she was a stay-at-home mom for many years) to have vested significantly in the State teachers retirement plan. Most of our savings are tied up in a 401k.</p>
<p>I’ve found the FAFSA penalizes us heavily due to my income … but if only my spouse’s income were considered is very generous (esp if not working full time)</p>
<p>Our house is paid for, but we plan to sell & move before or when our child finishes high school … sale of the house will garner us between 200k & 250k. Our plan is to buy a smaller home near the ocean for about 150k and banking the rest. Then we plan to rent a large apartment or small house wherever it is our child ends up going to college. We will then split our time between our retirement home and where our child is going to school. </p>
<p>I have been considering the idea of obtaining executing a “legal separation” agreement and establishing my legal residence at our retirement residence (driver license, vehicle registration, utilities, State tax form) & my spouses legal residence at our daughter’s college town.</p>
<p>Since we are in Texas which does not have a court mechanism for “legal separations” … it seems we would have to have a private “separation agreement” drawn up by an attorney … it may be possible to even have a “maintenance agreement” included which would allow us to split my retirement income to reduce each of our Federal income tax burden. (We would of course file as “Married Filing Separately” with spouse claiming our child as a dependent)</p>
<p>We are not interested of course in trying to do any kind of sham divorce … but since we would be traveling a lot during this period of our lives (sometimes separately) and spending considerable time away from each other, I see no reason not to separate our incomes in this manner & thus shelter my retirement income from FAFSA calculations. (Divorce would be out of the question anyway as I need to keep both spouse & child on my health insurance)</p>
<p>Any thoughts? (and again, spare me any moralizing)</p>
<p>One year I had to file as “married, filing separately” for taxes and it costs me thousands of dollars more than if I had filed as married. Just letting you know.</p>
<p>I’ve ran the numbers … between the two of us taxes would be a tad less than $2000 more if we filed Married Filing Separate. A whole lot less than that of course if spouse quit work. See my other thread for further comments.</p>
<p>You need to report all income. If you don’t and you get audited, you could be in a lot of trouble. </p>
<p>Paying for college education is expensive. It is important you and your husband have a frank talk about how you will pay for your daughters education. This better be formal as the person who will be caught in the middle is your daughter in case things go wrong. There are enough horror stories in CC describing informal arrangements that did not go well.</p>