<p>I have a senior and junior in HS. My seniors apps just went out and been getting our financials together. Found out too late that we should've have 529 over our UGMA/UTMA.
Both accounts are in a brokerage account. I was told I would have to sell funds and then transfer to 529 creating capital gains on sale of funds.I understand if were too late for my senior but worried how transfer of my juniors account would affect my senior base year.
The senior account has 32,000 with 12000 in capital gains.
The junior account has 28,000 with 9000 in capital gains.</p>
<p>529 accounts can only be opened with cash, so yes, you would have to liquidate the UGMA/UTMA brokerage accounts to use the funds to open a 529 account. If you do that, the resulting capital gains will count as income for the student for the tax year in question. Your senior’s financial aid forms for his/her freshman college year will be based on the financials for this tax year (2013). It’s not too late liquidate both brokerage accounts to open 529s for both kids, it’s just that they’ll have to report a lot of extra income. As you probably know, for FAFSA purposes, the brokerage accounts will be assessed as a student asset at 20%, while 529 accounts, even if owned by the student, will only be assessed at the 5.64% parent rate. You’ll have to run the numbers for each possible scenario to see what the best choice is for you. If you do that, don’t just think about this year and next year, but project it through all the college years for your kids.</p>
<p>Also note that students have an income protection allowance of $6130. The capital gains will appear on the student’s 1040 as income, so anything over the exclusion will count at the rate of 50%. You could take the gains up to the protection allowance amount with no effect on EFC.</p>
<p>The UTMA funds would need to be transferred by your brokerage to a UTMA/529 as a trustee-to-trustee transfer. The UTMA/529, also referred to as a custodial 529, is owned by the student and funds cannot be used for siblings.</p>
<p>You will have to run different scenarios to see if it makes sense to only convert some assets. I’d guess if you convert the ones with the lowest capital gains, up to the $6000 student exclusion, that will minimize the student’s portion of EFC.</p>
<p>What is your parents’ portion of EFC? Depending on what that is, it may not make any difference.</p>
<p>Wouldn’t it make sense for him to convert his junior’s account now, since it won’t affect the junior’s base year if he does it by year-end? I’m in a similar situation and am planning to liquidate the UGMA account and transfer to a 529 this year for my junior student.</p>
It might, but you have to look at the big picture.</p>
<p>For example, the tax on a kid’s capital gains over $1900/year are taxed at the parent’s highest marginal rate, not the preferential long term rate. A $9000 capital gain would likely lead to a $2000+ tax bill if the parents are in the 28% bracket.</p>
<p>If the parents’ portion of EFC hits 25K or more, it may not make any difference. They would not be eligible for FA at in-state public schools and almost all OOS public schools, and won’t receive much at most privates either, as most don’t meet full need.</p>
<p>So while converting the $28K to a 529 will lower EFC by around $4K, is it worth an extra $2K in taxes if the kid won’t get any need-based aid anyway? </p>
<p>You can do other things with UGMAs that you can’t do with 529s, like pay for a computer or trips or a musical instrument for the kid. So a better strategy may be to do some strategic spending out of the UGMA and then contribute a similar amount to a 529. Might be a little late in the game for this strategy.</p>
<p>The OP really hasn’t given enough info to make a recommendation, though.</p>
<p>I see; that makes sense if you can do some strategic spending from the UGMA before the base year. In my case, my junior has 20K in a UGMA, and we don’t have anything I can spend money on her this calendar year. She may have some expenses next summer that we could pay for from the UGMA, but we’d pay capital gain then, too (just not as much as if we liquidated the whole thing now). We will have a fairly high EFC, but she’s looking at some pretty pricey private LACs, so I don’t want to rule out the possibility of need-based aid.</p>
<p>“Also note that students have an income protection allowance of $6130. The capital gains will appear on the student’s 1040 as income, so anything over the exclusion will count at the rate of 50%. You could take the gains up to the protection allowance amount with no effect on EFC.”</p>
<p>so a student’s capital gains are counted at 50%, meaning the colleges see 50% of that amount as available for expenses?</p>