I’m matriculating this fall and finally have all my decisions in hand but with many schools not giving me as much financial aid as I would need. I think part of this comes from my family situation where my dad travels for work a lot and is reimbursed for all his travel expenses so his income appears quite a bit higher than it actually would be. However, I don’t think we were able to show that clearly on our financial aid documents which led to less aid being offered. I was just wondering if anyone has had any experience speaking with financial aid offices about a similar situation and if anyone might know how to approach an office with additional information that would hopefully increase the amount of aid offered? I am planning to visit several of the schools next week for my spring break so I was thinking about possibly setting up meetings with the financial aid offices but I was not sure how to approach that/what to bring with me/if that was even a common practice to meet in person?
Thank you very much for any insight or guidance you might have!
Does your dad own his own business? Or does he work for a very small business that perhaps does not do expense reimbursing as nontaxable? None of that shows up on a W2 if done properly. Why did you put it in your financial aid documents and under what category? Did your parents put it back into income like you would another nontaxable benefit like retirement contributions? Call the FA office with your mom or dad ASAP. @Azure342
Same here for travel reimbursement and expenses - none of those items appear as income on any of our tax documents and do not increase our household income.
Every once in awhile we’ve done in essence consulting and been paid for our expenses. It comes in on a MISC form and is completely offset by a “business expense” reporting. When reported that way it is non-taxable. Not sure how it works for financial aid forms as we didn’t apply for such.
My husband travels a LOT for his company. He makes sure to submit his receipts for travel expenses to the company. He doesn’t get paid extra income in order to travel for the company.
You should set up the meetings with FA, but have all the information about your parents’ finances. If those travel expenses were taxes (if your father is self employed and the schools disallowed the deductions), show that. If your family has other unusual expenses (medical, private school for a sibling for medical reasons, personal losses from a fire or flood, etc).
Don’t be thinking these schools are going to come up with $20k. If anything, it will be more like $2k.
Some salespeople and maybe other professions receive a flat amount of money per year for expenses. They do not account for every trip or meal. They are free to use the funds for travel or even keep the funds for themselves. The IRS views nonaccountable plans as wages.
The CPAs on the forum are probably too busy this time of year to answer.
@MatterS, government (and some companies) pay a per diem rather than itemizing all expenses, and that per diem isn’t wages even though you can ‘make’ quite a bit of money off it if you don’t eat out. My agency had a hotel in DC that many of us traveling stayed at, some long term. A co-worker basically lived there for 2 years, getting $75/day. There was a kitchenette in the room and a grocery store next door (plus a subsidized cafeteria), so I’d be surprised if she spent more than $10 on a typical day.
Our agency also had a program where you got a bonus for traveling more than 40 nights per year. That amount, about $50 per night, was taxable income and some people were getting $10k per year.
@HRSMom My dad does not own his own business but instead travels as a consultant to wherever a client is located (always in the domestic United States)! His work often places him in long term commitments in different cities.
@auntbea I did apply to somewhat affordable schools but what was offered to us from some was vastly different from what the net price calculators had ever mentioned. I think what also threw us off is that a school which did not receive our CSS profile offered significantly more aid than any other school, so we were unsure if that form impacted these offers in anyway?
@thumper1 I was able to check with him about how it is documented and he mentioned that his work puts all his expenses that were reimbursed as ‘compensatory expenses’ in his paycheck and they added this to my total income. He explained that they did this because he worked more than a year at the same client. In terms of documentation, he said he can show a printout of his paycheck and bring that to FA offices to help explain our situation.
I’m not sure if this clarifies very much but if anyone has any advice on how to move forward, that would be absolutely amazing!
I think there is a rule about being on one assignment for more than a year. I just met a guy from FEMA and he said his max is 10 months on one assignment.
Is this one year assignment rule a new one? My husband traveled on business to the same client once every couple of weeks for THREE years for one job, and once a month for FIVE years for another.
I think it is more of a case of them being permanently assigned to that client. Your husband came home and never moved his base.
Some people travel to the same clients monthly or yearly, but it wouldn’t make sense to move to live near that client since there are also other clients.