<p>Do my parents need to file their taxes before applying for financial aid? They will be doing the CSS Profile and FAFSA. If it makes any difference the schools all meet full need. Thank you.</p>
<p>You need to make sure you file for FA before any deadlines. If your parents haven’t filed taxes they can approximate the numbers to meet the deadlines and update with the correct numbers afterwards.</p>
<p>If I don’t have our taxes finished in time, I use the tax numbers from the previous year, and then I update everything when I have the final numbers. If your family’s situation doesn’t change much from one year to the next, you could do that too.</p>