Life Events: College Funding

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Funding Your Child's College Education With Stock Options And Other Stock Grants (Part 1)

Troy Onink
UPDATED FOR 2012! Your ability to pay for college, and ultimately have more money for retirement, may rest on your company's stock plan and related financial planning. Part 1 helps you understand the impact that equity grants have on financial aid eligibility.

Funding Your Child's College Education With Stock Options And Other Stock Grants (Part 2)

Troy Onink
UPDATED FOR 2012! Part 2 reviews the basics of gift tax and the tax treatment of stock compensation in your financial planning for higher education.

Funding Your Child's College Education With Stock Options And Other Stock Grants (Part 3)

Troy Onink
UPDATED FOR 2012! As college tuition and expenses rise, funding and tax strategies for middle-class families have become more important than ever. Part 3 focuses on methods to minimize capital gains at sale, planning for the kiddie tax and education credits, and strategies your children can use.

School Gifts That Skip Uncle Sam

Deborah Jacobs
BusinessWeek
A Health & Education Exclusion Trust can pay university tuition for one or several generations and avoids problems with the generation-skipping transfer tax.

The New Kiddie Tax

Troy Onink
Forbes.com
Congress continues to raise the minimum age at which children are taxed in their own tax bracket rather than at the tax rate of their parents. This limits the gifting of stock to kids to fund their college tuition and expenses, though strategies remain.

Tuition Magicians

Marie Leone
CFO
Smart tactics for coming up with money for college expenses.

Twenty Questions About Paying for College

Peter Karl, Edward Petronio, and Kenneth Wallis
The CPA Journal
Learn about financial aid, tax benefits that arise from funding college tuition, and the tax treatment of various savings methods.

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FAQs (Jump to articles)

To seek financial aid for my children's college tuition, I need to report my income and assets to the US Department of Education on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Should I list my stock grants? At what value?

As long as the student is considered a dependent of the parent for financial-aid purposes, the parent does have to report stock options on line...

What is the tax treatment for gifts of company stock?

It's similar to the tax treatment for any gifts of stock. You may make annual gifts to any number of recipient up to the specified annual amount without any tax impact. Financial advisors often tell clients with substantial stock holding to consider making...

I want to set up a program with my company and broker in which I automatically exercise options and sell stock to pay a regularly expected bill as it's received, such as my child's tuition. Can this prearranged selling plan violate insider trading laws and my company's blackout rules?

You are in luck. SEC Rule 10b5-1 now provides an affirmative defense...

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