On our free/reduced application they asked about members of household and income. Your dad would not live in the household so they should not need his tax return. Also if your mom qualifies for food stamps for example then you could be eligible for free/reduced lunch based on that.
It shouldn’t matter who claims you on the taxes. Child support may matter for the free lunch calculation. Your mother has to follow up if they ask for verification. Your father would have to pay a lot of child support for it to remove you from reduced lunch, and that’s all you need for the waivers.
We don’t receive food stamps.
So, is the consensus that I should reapply for free lunch and it DOESN’T (or does?) matter if I use it?
No one cares if you USE the free lunch. But qualifying for it could really help you in terms of some fees when applying to college.
But I’ll add my opinion. It is expensive to eat out. And it costs money to own a car and drive everyday to do so. It might be good to at least think about either packing a lunch…or getting that free lunch.
In NYC there is an automatic link from HRA to the schools for students receiving snap/ public assistance benefits. For all others they must provide proof of income for free lunch/ fee waivers
You could even eat at the cafeteria every day, but treat yourself to an off campus meal every once in a while.
The money you save by doing that will be very useful for you once you are in college. Even if you get very good aid, it will not cover everything and your mom probably won’t be able to help much. Especially if child support ends when you graduate high school (will it?).
Great. I found the information on the official FAFSA site and showed it to my mom (with the section about divorced parents and how you should list the parent you live with the majority of the time) and she still doesn’t believe me. I just don’t understand.
What doesn’t she believe? It’s pretty clear!
Maybe if you called the FAFSA hotline and she spoke to someone on the phone, she’d believe it and have a better idea of how to help you complete the form.
Okay, thanks! I’ll try to get her to do that!
LOL she and my dad have this irrational fear of getting audited and fined and arrested. Not a lot of trust in the federal government.
To be honest…including both your mom and dad on the FAFSA while,listing them as divorced would create more problems than doing it correctly!
The only potential issue with IRS may be if both your mother and your father file tax returns as Head of Household each claiming that one child live with them while for FAFSA both kids claim to live with the mother.
If your father files tax return as Single and takes a deduction for you while your mother files tax return as HOH and takes a deduction for your sister and both kids are listed on FAFSA as living with the mother - it is all good.
@CCDD14 is absolutely right; you are not going to get any actual money until you turn in a copy of your IRS transcript. Where you may have a problem is as @CCDD14 stated, you will show up as part of your mother’s household on the FAFSA and on your Dad’s tax return. Depending on how he has filed (if he has filed incorrectly, they can require that your parents correctly file their taxes).
If your mom is helping to pay for any of your college, she may be better served claiming the both of you and applying for the AOTC, where she can get up to a $2500 tax credit for qualified educational expenses she has paid.
Yeah, my dad will never let my mom claim me on taxes…
If your parents want to maximize overall tax savings they will have to cooperate. (They can split saved money later).
They will have to make a reasonable decision about who gets to claim you because whoever claims dependent deduction must also claim AOTC that start decreasing after 80K AGI and goes to 0 at $90K AGI. If his AGI is over roughly 85K it may be a mistake for him to claim you on tax return. He may have an option to decrease his AGI by putting more money before taxes into retirement but he has to plan ahead. Tell him to familiarize himself with AOTC rules. If your mother makes $20K she will not be able to get the whole $2.5K amount but can always get at least $1K