FAFSA and Retiree parents

swimcatsmom
Sun, 10 Feb 2008 18:45:38 +0000

You can file an ez with interest income $1500 or below. There are all sorts of things that may prevent you from filing it - capital gains from sale of stock, State tax refund from previous year if you itemised (I am still whining about that one - could not file EZ last year because of a small State tax overpayment - made very sure we could file it this year) etc. But if it is possible it may help you out. You cannot itemize deductions on the ez but if you are able to file it it may be worth playing with the numbers to see whether the financial aid benefit would (or would not) be a better deal than itemizing. Have you run your numbers through one of the EFC calculators to see what your EFC would be?

The question about earned income is used to calculate an allowance for social security tax (though why they do not ask for the actual SS tax paid is a mystery to me) and also income for people who are not required to file taxes. I don’t think it has any other affect.