I am in the process of filling out the CSS profile. We inherited money and used it to pay off debt, renovate our house for sale and buy a house. Do I have to put down this money as an asset since it is gone? This all happened in the last two years.
If the money is not in your possession the day you file your Profile…no you do NOT list it.
An inheritance is NOT income…and if it’s all gone now…it is no longer an asset.
Thanks. That’s what I wanted to hear, but on the form it asked for untaxed assets in 2016 which I made me wonder if I had to put the money down.
The form has that question? What question number is it?
I haven’t done a Profile in a long while. I didn’t know it asked about assets from prior prior year!
@BelknapPoint maybe you can answer this if given the question number.
@college2soon please let me know you read my second response!
I don’t think we’ve ever heard that FA apps ask for assets held in previous years. Previous years info is about income. Assets are about what you currently have.
If you received 100K in an inheritance and spent it before you filled out FA forms, you don’t put it down as an asset…because you don’t have that cash/stock/bonds asset anymore.
However, if you paid off or paid down your mortgage and this is a CSS profile school, then the new equity will get reported. For example, if you paid $150k towards your mortgage and now have $200k in equity, then the 200k in equity would be reported.
Yes, I got it. I will look closely at the question again.
I will have to look at the equity and so on. Thank you both.
What question number is this on the Profile…and what exactly does th question say?
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I will look up when I get a chance, may not be until Saturday.
@BelknapPoint any thoughts on this?
It sounds improbable, so I’m waiting to find out which Profile question asks about “untaxed assets in 2016.”
Right now, the part I am looking at says untaxed income, but an inheritance would not be counted as income. As I proceed, I will check the assets part.
@BelknapPoint can corroborate or not.
An inheritance is NOT income. BUT any money IN your accounts as if the date of filing your FAFSA IS considered an asset.
So if you were looking at 2016 untaxed INCOME and wondered if the inheritance should go there…no. Because it’s not income.
Is that the question you were looking at when you posted your initial post?
For the 2018-2019 FAFSA, you report 2016 income. On the Profile, I believe there are questions about projected income for other years. You do that too.
BUT ASSETS…those are reported as of the day you file your Profile. They are not reported for 2016…unless some new question has been added about past assets. Let us know that question number when you get to it, if there is one…and what the question says.
I think OP mixed the terms up when using the phrase “untaxed assets in 2016” in post #2 above. It sounds like what was really meant was “untaxed income in 2016.”
Using the wrong word can cause a lot of confusion.
So I misunderstood about income. It only looks at current assets and not past inheritances so I did not have to put it down. I put the value of our current home and what we paid and did not have to enter anything about previous sale. I finished the form and am waiting to submit once we know if we got a NMF scholarship.
Why are you waiting