<p>Hello everyone. I am having some difficulties in filling up the FAFSA and CSS and would be really glad if someone helped me out. I am a US permanent resident, but my parents are foreign citizens who are living abroad (in Bangladesh), which makes my financial aid application process a little trickier than that of others since I am filling up the FAFSA and CSS profile based on my parents' foreign tax returns. I am listing my queries below :</p>
<p>1) In the "parent's business" section of the CSS profile, there is a question which asks the following:
" Enter the amount your parent(s) owe on this business."
My father received a certain sum of money in advance from his customers, and this amount is listed under the "liabilities" section of my father's Bangladeshi tax return form. Should I include this amount for this question, or is this actually irrelevant to what the question asks? I am not really sure if money received in advance from customers falls under money owed on the business.</p>
<p>2) In FAFSA, there is a question which says "Enter your parents exemptions for 2013". I am not sure about what the term "exemptions" refers to in this context. Is this question asking about the number of dependents my parents support?
We are a family of four, and my father is the only one in the family who earns money. He has to support himself, me, my mom and my brother. So should the answer to this question be 4, or should I exclude my father and put 3 as an answer instead? Or am I completely wrong in assuming that the number of exemptions refers to the number of dependents?</p>
<p>3) How are my parents supposed to sign the FAFSA? Since they are not US citizens or permanent residents, they do not have any social security numbers (SSN) for which they can't apply for a FAFSA pin and thus can't sign electronically. There is an option to print out a signature page and mail it to the FAFSA office, but if I am not mistaken, the signature page asks for SSN as well. Should my parents simply leave the SSN field blank? </p>
<p>I have emailed the FAFSA help center about these questions, but it's a holiday today so I don't think I'll get a reply soon enough. I would really appreciate it if someone helps me out here. Thanks in advance :)</p>
