Questions 84-86 (Parent Worksheets)

The online application automatically presents Worksheet questions as appropriate. If you (as a parent) are completing a paper form, complete the right-hand column on page 5 labeled "Parents."

Question 84 - Worksheet A

Earned income credit. Enter the earned income credit from your parents' IRS Form 1040—line 66a; 1040A—line 40a; 1040EZ—line 8a.

Additional child tax credit. Report the amount from your parents' IRS Form 1040—line 68 or 1040A—line 41.

Welfare benefits (including Temporary Assistance for Needy Families [TANF]). Enter the total amount of welfare benefits your parents received, including TANF, in 2007. Report the amount they received for the year - not monthly amounts. Do not include the annual total value of food stamps or subsidized housing.

Untaxed Social Security benefits for all household members as reported in Question 66. If Social Security benefits that were not taxed (such as Supplemental Security Income [SSI]) 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 in the parent column, not your income in the student column.

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.