How to Make Your College Student Independent for Financial Aid
- 1). Stop claiming your child as a dependent for income tax purposes. This is the most important strategy you need to employ in order to make your college student independent for financial-aid purposes.
- 2). Permit your child to stay in your home less than six months of the year. Odds are your child already is doing this on her own due to school commitments and other reasons.
- 3). Set up a separate residence for your child. Have child list another address as his own. The address your child maintains while at school is a logical choice.
- 4). Verify that your child uses her independent address for the purposes of filing her state and local tax returns.
- 5). Verify that your child change's the address on his driver's license to reflect his residence. Additionally, have your child change his contact information on any bank accounts, insurance policies and other items.
- 6). Encourage your child to register to vote in the jurisdiction of her actual residence (be that at school or some other location that is not your own residence).
- 7). Limit the amount of financial support you provide your child. Federal law permits you to give a gift to another individual in an amount of $15,000 or less on an annual basis without any tax implication. Therefore, if you are providing your child money, make sure that it is in the form of a gift and is less than this amount. In the alternative, you can execute a loan agreement with your child provided there is a true intent for your child to repay the money he borrows.
Source...