Agreed that there’s an issue with either the source of income or something complicated by the separation. OP just needs to know that providing taxes is only the beginning and that other fibs regarding saving, investments, businesses, etc. only makes things worse. The FAFSA just calculates an expected family contribution - it’s the college financial aid offices that will be reviewing the submitted docs, grinding the details, and asking for more info. Every. Single. Year. Keeping the student’s well-being in mind, if the parent isn’t going to claim them as a dependent then the student should at least work towards changing their dependency so they can claim more aid on their own in the coming years. Or else they do community college, have a gap year, etc. - but that’s only helpful if there is an eventual plan is to file something for 2019 and 2020. My $.02 is not to entangle the student’s college in whatever issues there are any more. It’s going to be a high-wire act for years that could all fall apart at a moment’s notice and cause the student even more harm later. If the other parent has better financial information, maybe they are the ones who should be filing and perhaps OP can simply pay an accountant or similar to work through the FAFSA process for the other parent.