On the worksheets, your parents should go to www.fafsa.ed.gov and click on "Worksheets" under "Before Beginning a FAFSA" or complete the right-hand (purple) side on page 8 of the paper FAFSA.

Question 78 - Worksheet A

Earned income credit. Enter the earned income credit from your parents' IRS Form 1040 - line 63; 1040A - line 41; 1040EZ - line 8; Telefile - line L.

Additional child tax credit. Report the amount from your parents' IRS Form 1040 - line 65 or 1040A - line 42.

Welfare benefits (including Temporary Assistance for Needy Families [TANF]). Enter the total amount of welfare benefits your parents received, including TANF, in 2003. Report the amount they received for the year - not monthly amounts. Do not include the annual total value of the food stamps or subsidized housing.

Untaxed Social Security benefits for all household members as reported in Question 65. If Social Security benefits were paid to your parents on your behalf (because you were under 18 years old at the time), those benefits are reported as your parents' income, not your income.

Your parents must report benefits received on behalf of persons included in their household size as their income. However, if a member of your parents' household, such as an uncle or grandmother, receives benefits in his or her own name, your parents do not report those benefits in the total parental income.

The actual amount of benefits received for the year in question must be reported, even if that amount represents an underpayment or an overpayment that may be compensated for in the next year. This parallels the IRS treatment of overpayments of taxable income (such as salary) that must be reported and are taxed as any other income.