<p>My step-daughter (wife's daughter from her first marriage) is a freshman in High School. For the last 12 years, custody has been shared between the biological father and us. He has not remarried. He pays a nominal amount of child support ($5K per year) because my wife is a stay at home mom and doesn't earn anything. He earns about $25-30K per year as a handyman/contractor. We claim our daughter on our income tax return. Our daughter is likely to go to an Ivy league school or UC. So here it the question...
Should we amend the custody when she is in 10th grade and have him claim her on his income tax return for the last two years so they will not use my income for her FAFSA application. I am the breadwinner in our household (stepfather) and my income will likely preclude her being awarded financial aid. Even at this age she has a room at both our houses and she goes wherever she wants on a day to day basis. We have always claimed her because when she was younger (under 10) she was with us during the week and him on the weekends.
We're trying to figure this out while there is still time. I would rather forego the tax credit (Maybe $2K X 2 years = $4K) than have the $50K college bill in three years.</p>
<p>For fafsa the only thing that matters is who the student lives with more. So if your step-daughter spends one more night at one house or the other, that’s who provides the parent info on the fafsa. Who has legal custody or who claims her on taxes is irrelevant for fafsa. The calendar year where she is a 2nd semester junior and first semester senior will determine this for her first year of college.</p>
<p>The schools that give the best aid, including the Ivys, require either their own financial aid form or a collegeboard form called the CSS profile in addition to the fafsa. This form asks for a lot more detailed financial information. And in the vast majority of cases it also asks for non-custodial parent(NCP) information. That means that for colleges that require NCP info, your wife and you and the bio father and his wife if remarried by then will all be required to provide their financial info.</p>
<p>For FAFSA, it does not matter who claims her on their taxes. What matters is who she lives with the most. If she does not live more with one than the other, it is who provided the most support.</p>
<p>If she goes to an Ivy like school, it may be a moot point. Many of the more competitive schools that are generous with FA require the CSS profile or their own forms to determine institutional aid (Federal aid won’t even take a nibble out of the more expensive schools). Schools that require CSS profile often require the financial information of noncustodial parents as well as custodial parents (and any step parents).</p>
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Do you know how competitive the Ivies are? (And what is “UC”?)</p>
<p>Yes, the FAFSA is all about where she lays her head at night. However, many schools also require the CSS Profile and Non-Custodial Profile, which will require you to report your income and have it included in the financial aid calculations anyway, no matter who she resides with or who takes the deduction. Plus some schools have their own forms on top of that. They are pretty good at digging out the income and assets of all parents, step-parents, family businesses, etc.</p>
<p>Thank you for all your responses. I guess I will have to do some more research to find out which schools will require additional reporting. </p>
<p>CTTC: I do know how competative Ivy league schools are. My stepdaughter is a 13 year old freshman who will graduate when she is 16 and is already taking community college classes in literature and creative writing. She maintains a 4.0 GPA and is on the tennis team. In addition, she is involved in local theatre and does 2-3 plays a year. I went to Yale on scholarship and I am aware how difficult it is to get in and succeed. If she wants it for herself she will achieve it. A UC is a University of California school. We live in CA.</p>
<p>Question for the group: What if you honestly couldn’t calculate how many nights she lays her head where? I sometimes don’t know if she is coming home to us until just before dinner or later. She is such a responsible kid that as long as she is tethered to my wife by the cell phone, we let her choose on a day to day basis whether to go to her dads or come here. Sometimes I think she chooses based on where she has the most clean wardrobe choices. She knows the bus routes both directions and she grabs a ride to school with either her dad or me depending on where she stays. Mom is home at our house every day after school and her dad is home 30 minutes after her bus drops her off.</p>
<p>If your daughter goes to IVY, it would not matter how many nights she sleeps in your house. Both yours, your wife’s and your wife ex-husband’s income will be used to determine financial aid.</p>
<p>The IVYs still require the fafsa to be filed by the correct parent to see if the student qualifies for federal aid which will be part of the package.</p>
<p>My opinion would be if you don’t keep track of who she stays with most and can’t demonstrate who it is if required, then you would need to use the household that provides the most financial support.</p>
<p>This is a great forum. So if I don’t worry about whose claiming her on their tax return, I would have to say that it certainly appears as if her bio dad is providing the lion’s share of the support. We both maintain lodging for her and feed her somewhat equally (unlimited access to prepared and unprepared groceries depending upon the time of day or night). However, he pays a child support payment in addition of $400 per month or $4800 per year to my wife. If you don’t include “toys” like the latest smartphone or kindle or computer, etc, he is the clear winner in that scenerio.</p>
<p>Who pays for her health insurance coverage? Are clothing costs equally shared? I would include cell phone plans and phones and computers as support. Are there current education costs? Who provides transportation to school and activities, there are costs associated with that.</p>
<p>I would be careful if you decide the household with the least income is providing more support in this scenario, especially if the dad’s income is 25-30k and yours is enough that you don’t think you’d qualify for aid.</p>
<p>I would echo annoyingdad’s concern about designating bio-dad as her supporting parent.</p>
<p>And, on a different note, I just want to point out that there are a lot of options other than the UC’s and the Ivies. It might make sense for your family to start looking into schools where your stepdaughter might qualify for significant merit aid - unrelated to family finances. These range from liberal arts colleges (offering a variety of different merit awards), to well known (but not quite Ivy) universities, to out-of-state publics offering automatic/guaranteed merit awards based on stat’s. She has choices - and this would be a great time to start looking into them!</p>