My daughter will graduate this year from a private Christian School. I had suspected but recently found out for sure that she has been lying along with her father on the FAFSA. Her father and I are divorced. My income my income the past three years has been 9,000,11,000 and then 20,000. My ex-husbands have been around 100,000 to 120,000. We divorced three years ago. She emancipated at 17 as she graduated from school early. I was granted full custody of all 3 kids in the divorce. Her father has turned her against me with lies since she has moved out and gone to college. He had an affair; I suspect the guilt is what makes him lie about me. The school is about an hour away, and she usually came home on the weekends to her father’s house and spent the summers there. He has sent her on many extravagant vacations during her college years. During these college years, my daughter has had the best of everything. My ex-husband also receives substantial gifts throughout the year from his family’s estate. My daughter informed me that she has been using my address as her own and I’m guessing my income on her FAFSA. She was asking me over the summer how much I had in the bank. She has minimal contact with me, unfortunately, due to lies. She stops by briefly for Christmas and her birthday. I’m looking for advice on what to do about the FAFSA.
If she is using your info, then she would have needed to link YOUR tax info to the IRS Data Retrival Tool. Or she would have needed to provide a tax transcript which actually YOU would have needed to provide.
You say she was emancipated at 17? What do you mean by this? Was she a legally emancipated minor?
Your story doesn’t make sense.
thumper1
2017 is the first year I have worked, so it will be the first year I file taxes. I was a stay at home mom and going to school when my husband left us. What I meant by emancipated at 17 is, my daughter started school at age four, therefore graduating at 17, so my ex-
Husband had her emancipated then (for child support purposes) instead of the usual age of 18.
I believe my ex-husband signs my name for me on the FAFSA’s if required. He did this with our income tax returns before the divorce was final.
If your D was emancipated through the courts, then she is an independent student. It does not matter who she lives with. She does not have to use the income/asset for either one of you. Your name would not go on the FAFSA , neither would your ex husband. She would get flagged for verification, where she would simply provide the school with a copy of her court papers showing her emancipation
If she truly is emancipated then using your income is just as wrong I suspect. She is her own adult if she emancipated. It would seem to me that she should only be using her income for the FAFSA.
Most kids do not complete the legal process of emancipation and therefore must use parental income. She should be out from under that.
Thank you. The thing is, each year I get an email, saying it’s time to file your students FAFSA again. I think I’ll just follow up on that.
Are you looking to get her into trouble for fraud? I’d recommend you ask your daughter and ex directly before you cause damage you won’t be able to undo…
What is it that you really want to achieve from all of this?
Are you so caught up in your feelings that you think that you need to make your daughter and your ex “pay” by possibly having them charged with fraud or saying that you will in order to exercise some sort of control?
What are your true motives- are you just to be vengeful? IF you feel that your ex has turned your D against you, this will do nothing in the hopes of building a healthy relationship. What ever you decide to do, make sure that you can live with the consequences. Right now it seems like you want to scorch the earth as far as your family is concerned.
You sound very hurt, angry and a little bitter. You gotta learn how deal with all of these feelings in a healthy and constructive way. Doing something to “get back” at or to hurt your ex and your child (as she will always be your child), is not really going to make you happy in the end.
OP, posters are correct that “emancipation” is a legal process/status, not simply declared by a parent or student. It’s not as easy as, you’re x age. (in fact, it’s at odds with “custody.”) Instead, do you mean only that Dad no longer pays child support because she finished high school?
I agree that OP needs to be careful about how she approaches her suspicions. But she should at least determine if a FAFSA for her daughter is being/has been fraudulently submitted using her data and name. I would recommend figuring this out first, so that if she needs to confront her daughter and ex, she has the important facts in place. If OP is receiving FAFSA reminder emails from a .gov email address, that’s a good bet there’s something going on that she needs to know more about.
Are you concerned that you are going to get in trouble for someone else signing your name, or for your D using your address when she did not live with you? Or do you suspect that your D has taken out loans that you might be responsible for?
I understand wanting to make sure your ex has not corrupted your D to cause her to falsify information that may cause problems for her down the road. I would hope your ex shares the same concerns.
You don’t know the whole story, and there are enough questions that could result in concern, but some of these should have been addressed years ago, not just when she’s ready to graduate.
If these folks are submitting the fafsa and using the OPs email address…there is something else going on. How would,this happen if the OP hasn’t given her email log on information to her daughter. Maybe it’s time to change her email password.
You SUSPECT there has been misinformation on the FAFSA. You don’t know that for sure. All you KNOW is that you get an annual reminder to complete the form. You really have NO IDEA what has been put on it in the past for all you really know…this has all been done accurately.
I really doubt the daughter and ex got a FSA ID with the mother’s name and email. When you get the FSA ID, they send you emails so you need to use one that you have access to - not one the ‘really’ belongs to the OP. Anyone can get a gmail address, the ex probably has all the info he’d need to get a FSA ID for the mother (name, SSN, date of birth), but do you think he’s going through all that trouble?
Also, gifts from his family are not income to him. He wouldn’t have to report those gifts unless they were still in an account, then they’d be an asset.
Who is sending the annual reminder? Could it be coming from the college itself just because they got your email address at some point?
Assuming you are wrong about emancipation, she would need to report all income from both parents which sounds like what she is doing. Sounds like you’re trying to do something that will make your situation with your daughter irreconcilable, really bad idea to take revenge on your ex through your daughter.
No, CU123, if parents are divorced the dependent student only reports the income from the parent she lives with the most.
I get reminders from both the schools and from FAFSA to file. I got one in the fall for my daughter who will be going to school next year, and I just got one for my daughter who is graduating in May from the FAFSA people.
You should run a credit check on yourself. Tomorrow. If indeed there is funny business, your personal information may being used.
I agree with other comments: have all the facts before you do something precipitous.
People are confused about the word emancipation. She’s “emancipated” for the purposes of child support because in most states child support ends when a child turns 18 or graduates from high school, whichever occurs first.
This child graduated high school at 17, so she is “emancipated” from receiving child support. She is not an “emancipated minor,” which is a totally different thing.
Is OP assuming her D couldn’t possibly get FA based on her ex earning $100-120k? Does she even know what aid the kid is getting? Despite custody, if she lives more with him and he pays more of her costs, he may be listing himself as the primary parent and receiving his own reminders, no? Mom may only get hers, her email could simpy be in college records. ??