On my CommonApp essay, I wanted to include something about one of my parent’s jobs and its effect on me. This job is under-the-table, so it’s not recorded on any tax documents.
I’m not so much worried about this being a problem with AOs, as much as it is a problem when the financial aid office comes down once I’m admitted and sees a discrepancy between my parent’s tax documentation and what info I’ve recorded on the commonapp.
Should I include my parent’s job on my commonapp essay? Should I include the job inside the Family section of my commonapp? Are financial aid officers even able to see the family section or essay on your commonapp?
While I doubt the AOs will be communicating with the financial aid office, I’d caution against revealing your parent’s under-the-table job anywhere in your college app. Without knowing how detailed you’re going to be in your essay, or why your parent works under the table, I’d still say it’s too much of a risk.
And while I sympathize with undocumented people or citizens simply trying to make ends meet, I’d personally never pay someone under the table nor have I ever failed to report income I easily could have omitted. At the very least, you may run afoul of your AO’s feelings on the ethics of the matter.
I wanted to give some context into my family’s financial situation. This specific parent is also a naturalized immigrant, and I wanted to write about how that influenced my political aspirations/interests. Including their job on my essay/app would help me write a better essay with these goals in mind.
You can write about being the child of a naturalized citizen without having to discuss an under-the-table job. “Under the table” can refer to many different types of off the books employment- but for many people it just means “the employee is a tax cheat and the employer is, too”. So why go there?
I agree with the others, do not mention that your parent is being paid under the table because that implies they are not paying taxes. Your parent likely should be paying taxes even if they aren’t an employee or don’t receive a 1099.
You can include it as an EC but don’t say anything about earning money/being paid under the table/aren’t claiming income on taxes. If you aren’t an employee/considered self-employed and make greater than $400, you are required to file a tax return. You should do so.
Note if you do apply for financial aid and your family has savings and expenses that aren’t consistent with reported income, the FA people may ask questions. @kelsmom?
I don’t know the reasons for why your family is working under the table. No matter what they are, however, your income is still required to be reported (and taxed appropriately). Most people think that Al Capone was guilty of tons of crimes. For what crime did he go to prison the longest? Tax evasion.
I think the theme of your essay can still be ‘I learned about hard work from watching my father, an immigrant who became a naturalized citizen, work two jobs to support his family.’ Talk about what you learned by watching him work hard.
I would not talk about not paying taxes on income. I think many people, immigrants or not, have had unreported income in their past. I don’t think an AO would be shocked by the fact that someone was a babysitter at age 14 and didn’t report it, but is it going to help in any way? No.
Your family should be paying taxes on earnings. The sticky thing that can happen is that you have to report all income on the FAFSA, and you have to report taxes paid. All IRS reported income will transfer over from the IRS. You will be required to manually add any income that wasn’t reported to the IRS. If you’re honest and the earnings exceed the threshold for filing a federal return, you will most likely be selected for verification … and if you were supposed to have filed a tax return, you will have to do so if you want to be eligible for financial aid.” It’s possible you might not be selected for verification, but there is a strong likelihood you will (and if not this year, possibly it could happen next year), and you need to consider that. I’ve had students in this situation before. It’s something you should discuss with your parents.
Setting aside the legal and ethical considerations (and I’m not here to judge why OP’s parent is working under the table), I don’t see how including this detail strengthens OP’s case for admission. That seems like a good reason to leave it out.
Or indeed that your parent was exploited by an employer, which has contributed to your political aspirations. No need to get into tax issues. Or to discuss whether this is currently the situation vs taking place while you were growing up (when it would be irrelevant to any financial aid decision).
So I might disagree a bit but didn’t read everything. Talk about your learnt experiences with this job or any job. What did you learn from your father? How can you use that in the future and to make yourself a better college student? How you got paid doesn’t matter so don’t mention it. TONS of student’s work for their families. Work is an excellent EC and looked highly upon for most college.
When reading essays I want to know how that experience impacted you today.
