<p>Okay, I'm so confused.
so i plan on attending college in fall of 2011.
i need to fill our FASFA and CSS profile for my prospective colleges.
which year's tax return do I use?
My parents filed their taxes in april of this year. does that mean they got a tax return considered 2010 or 2009.</p>
<p>PLEASE HELP</p>
<p>For the Fall 2011 FA forums, both FAFSA and the Profile, 2010 tax numbers are used. Since many fr applicants have deadlines of Feb or March, that means that your parents will likely have to estimate some numbers if they have not completed their taxes. For the FAFSA, you designate at the beginning that you have not completed taxes yet, then later when you are finished with taxes, you can file a corrected version with final numbers. For the Profile, you can do updated versions for new schools you are submitting to, but you cannot make corrections online once you have sent it to a college. Colleges vary in how they want Profile corrections, but they often want you to send a hard copy of the Profile you filed with the corrections marked on it.</p>
<p>This year, your parents will want to complete their taxes ASAP.</p>
<p>so if i fill out the app on january 1 i use the taxes they filed in april 2010, then they will file their 2010 taxes, and those will be sent to the colleges?</p>
<p>when will the 2010 taxes need to be sent by</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Sort of.</p>
<p>Your parents have already filed their 2009 tax return…that was LAST year’s return. The one they will be completing after the first of the year will be their 2010 tax return. THAT is the one that (eventually) you will need to use for your FAFSA which becomes available to file on January 1, 2011. </p>
<p>That 2011-2012 FAFSA will become available on January 1, 2011. You can complete it using a will file status meaning you WILL file your taxes but have not yet done so. You should use the BEST estimates possible for all fields that will come from the tax form (income/taxes paid). Some folks will use their 2009 taxes as a guideline. Your parents and you should also use your last pay stub from 2010 to get your total income, and taxes. Your assets are reported the day of your filing of the FAFSA. So complete and submit it.</p>
<p>Then your family needs to complete their taxes as soon as possible after Feb 1. This is NOT the year to wait until April 15 to file your taxes for 2010. Once you complete your taxes, you go back into the FAFSA and amend your FAFSA changing the fields that have numbers from your tax returns (those are the ONLY fields you change). You will change your filing status to “taxes completed” and resubmit the FAFSA to your schools.</p>
<p>Remember, you must amend to reflect your 2010 tax return. Until you do this, any financial aid award you get will be an estimated one only. The award will not be finalized until you put the 2010 tax info on that FAFSA.</p>
<p>so should i wait till my parents file their 2010 tax returns and then fill out my fafsa and css or should i just use my 2009 to estimate the amount and fill it out?</p>