filing-the-fafsa-2015-2016-edition

Filing the FAFSA 93
• Commodities and precious metals
• Businesses and investment farms (including the value of land, buildings, machinery, equipment
and inventory)
• Real estate
• Installment and land sale contracts (including mortgages held)
• Custodial accounts, including Uniform Gift to Minors Act (UGMA) and Uniform Transfer to
Minors Act (UTMA) accounts (if owner, not custodian)
• Trust funds
• College savings plans, including 529 College Savings Plans, Prepaid Tuition Plans (value is the
refund value of the plan) and Coverdell Education Savings Accounts
The following assets are not reported on the FAFSA:
• The family’s principal place of residence (the family home)
• A family farm, if it is the family’s principal place of residence and the student and/or parents
materially participate in the farming operation
• Any small businesses owned and controlled by the family. Small business have less than 100 fulltime
or full-time equivalent employees. To be controlled by the family, the family must own more
than 50 percent of the business. Note that family members are not limited to just those counted in
household size on the FAFSA, but may include relatives by birth or marriage.
• Qualified retirement plans, such as 401(k) plans, 403(b) plans, pension plans, annuities, traditional
IRAs, Roth IRAs, Keogh, profit sharing, SEP and SIMPLE plans
• Life insurance policies, including cash value and whole life insurance policies
• Personal possessions, such as clothing, furniture, a car, computer equipment and software,
television and stereo equipment
• Property received by Native American students under the Per Capita Act, the Distribution of
Judgment Funds Act, the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act or the Maine Indian Claims
Settlement Act
Note that while qualified retirement plans do not count as assets, distributions from a retirement plan
(including tax-free distributions) do count as income to the beneficiary on the FAFSA. (The only exception
is for amounts rolled over into another retirement plan in the same tax year.) Tax-free contributions to