Thursday, October 1, 2009

529 COLLEGE SAVINGS PLAN CHANGES PROPOSED


Among recommendations from the White House Task Force on Middle-Class Working Families (Treasury Department) here are some proposals:

  • 529 plans getting greater availability of age-based index funds that shed equities and add fixed-income assets as beneficiary approaches college
  • eliminating a “home-state bias” for fee and state tax assessments which currently force families to use funds offered in their home state rather than in others
  • put limits on balances on a per-beneficiary bases rather than on state-by-state basis
  • Treasury should collect data from surveys re 529 plan participation and investments
  • Strengthen compliance and monitoring of Section 529 accounts and disbursements
  • Simplify the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) which currently has 153 questions, some having no impact on student aid – over 1MM eligible students fail to fill out this currently complex form
  • Tailoring the form to individual students
  • Allowing students to electronically retrieve their tax info from the IRS and enter it into the online FAFSA

MARILYN FARBER JACOBS is a Licensed Advisor / Independent Insurance Agent – who has College Savings Plans to tell you about, using a 529 Plan, term, universal life or whole life plans so that you, or someone you know, can make an educated choice.

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