css untaxed income = gifts?

Paying for College
1

<p>I don’t really understand the css profile form. One question is about other untaxed income, and says don’t include gifts and support other than money–but do you have to report gifts of money as income?</p>

2

<p>Yes. The instruction

has a confusing double negative: “Do not include … gifts … other than money” means --Do include gifts of money–.</p>

<p>There is a controversy whether inheritances of money are to be included, but I don’t want to get into that again.</p>

3

<p>Another way to interpret the instruction is:
Don’t include:

  1. any income reported elsewhere on Profile;
  2. money from financial aid;
  3. Workforce, etc.;
  4. gifts; and
  5. support, other than money, received from friends and relatives</p>

<p>This interpretation would require reporting of all gifts. Is this instruction hopelessly ambiguous or is there some rule of grammar or construction that would apply?</p>

4

<p>I have stewed and stewed about this and thought I had the answer (that you do not report gifts), then saw a form that sounded like you do. I finally just wrote the colleges and told them we had gifts, couldn’t tell whether we should report them or not (since you do <em>not</em> on the FAFSA) and would detail them on request. I have not heard back from any but one that said they did not need any more info.</p>

1 Like
5

<p>dt123,
I read that instruction and thought at first it meant don’t include gifts, and don’t include support other than money received from friends and relatives. So I didn’t include anything. Then I thought about it some more, and thought it meant don’t include gifts and support other than money, but do include money! We have actually received a lot of money this year–one of us got laid off, other is working and in school, parents decided it would be good to give us some money now instead of waiting until they die. I still have the profile form waiting to be sent.</p>

6

<p>An update on the above post for future archive searchers. I sent letters asking colleges to let me know if I was supposed to report gifts to parents on the PROFILE, since you do <em>not</em> on the FAFSA, and I would send them details. Not one of the eight schools requested the information. I think from our experience, that you do not include gifts to <em>parents</em> on either the FAFSA or PROFILE.</p>