<p>Okay so do colleges that ask for it absolutely need your 2010 Tax Returns this early? If one or both of your parents is absolutely not able to file that early, can they send 2009 tax returns and then send the 2010 ones at a later date? My noncustodial parent really cannot do his taxes until April, so I'm not sure what to do? Does the IDOC take 2009 tax forms? OH and also does the IDOC immediately distribute tax forms to colleges once received or is there some sort of mailing delay?</p>
<p>As far as I know, IDOC will not take 2009 forms. </p>
<p>If your NCP cannot file his return until April, you need to (a) have a very good reason, and (b) call each school and ask them what they want you to do about it. </p>
<p>The problem is, if your NCP doesn’t send them his tax return until mid-April, there is no way they’ll have a financial aid offer ready for you by May 1. So you’ll be in a position of having to decide on a school without knowing how much it is going to cost you!</p>
<p>SOME schools will give you an estimated package based on 2009 forms, and some will not. You need to call each school and find out what, if anything, they want your NCP to send now, and what impact not having his tax returns until late spring will have on (a) your <em>eligibility</em> for financial aid (often aid is given out on a first-come, first-served basis and you may miss out), and (b) when you will get notified of your package. </p>
<p>Why can’t your NCP do his taxes until April? Many adults are <em>accustomed</em> to doing them then, and it <em>is</em> harder to do them this early, but rarely impossible. </p>
<p>As for IDOC, it takes a while for your mail to get to them, then a few days for them to acknowledge receipt, and some more time for them to process them and actually get your information to the schools (I think they scan every page, and create a secure file of some kind to send electronically to the schools). Most schools will go by the date IDOC acknowledged receipt of your package, but that can take about a week from when you send it. </p>
<p>At this point you <em>definitely</em> need to call your schools and find out what you can and must do.</p>
<p>Many taxpayers can’t file until Feb. 14th this year, due to last-minute changes in the tax law. I wonder if colleges are going to cut students some slack because of this?</p>
<p>The answer, based on calling/emailing my S’s colleges is: some are and some are not. MOST taxpayers can prepare their returns, and print and send copies to colleges and IDOC before Feb. 14th even if they can’t file them with the IRS until the 14th. I was able to do that after my last needed form was finalized on the 5th.</p>
<p>K-1 forms (the income tax document needed if you have earnings from a partnership) are not required to be mailed until March 15th, and corporations have an option of using an extended deadline of September 15th, so some taxpayers have no possible way of doing a tax return by February 15th. It is one thing if the taxpayer owns the corporation, and can thus prioritize getting the K-1 done, but if you’re just on the receiving end of K-1s with no involvement in generating them, they come when they come. Many, many families with K-1 income file extensions and end up filing the actual tax return much later.</p>
<p>arabrab obviously if there is a genuine reason (lack of forms) that prevents a taxpayer from filing their taxes by February, they are going to have to call the relevant schools and ask them how to handle that. </p>
<p>The problem still remains that if you can’t send in your tax return until well after the Feb 15th deadlines, there will no way the schools can have a final financial aid offer ready for you by May 1. If the school is willing to do an estimate before your 2010 taxes are complete, the more accurate information you can give them (from prior years taxes and from estimates of this year’s income) the better the estimate will be, but my impression is that nothing is guaranteed until they get your final numbers, and some schools won’t even do an estimate!</p>
<p>New to the process but this is what I have learned so far: You can’t file your return with IDOC until you have submitted your CSS Profile. After you file the profile, if you have selected schools that use IDOC, you get a message from IDOC with a personalized cover sheet to send with your 2010 returns.</p>
<p>Our son has applied to only one school that requires the Profile and IDOC. I called to ask about the filing date question. Their suggestion for those who can’t meet at Feb. 15 deadline is to mail 2009 returns directly to the school and to file ASAP. </p>
<p>Our return is done and we are mailing it Priority Mail to IDOC this afternoon for a 2-15 arrival. We were missing some 1099s from investments but found all of them on the investment companies’ websites–even those that had not been mailed yet.</p>
<p>Another tip: Our preparer files for us electronically. The copies of our return that we receive don’t show a signature. They show the last five digits of our SSN. I called IDOC today to ask if that was sufficient and the rep told me to sign them anyway. Very nice helpful lady. Only waited 5 minutes on hold.</p>
<p>Call the schools and ask each specifically. You will get the most accurate answers that way.</p>
<p>The colleges need to know what amounts of financial aid to allocate among students, but they reserve the right to adjust the offer based upon more detailed information. </p>
<p>If you can’t have every i dotted and t crossed on your tax returns, I would still send them to the colleges by their priority deadline. In reality, for the colleges, the details of IRS Schedule
XX1067 won’t really matter much to them - they will mainly care about seeing W2s, interest and dividend income, etc. </p>
<p>You are not required to send the forms to the IRS by February, so it still gives you time to refine them. If you later make any changes to the tax returns, send them to the college at that time with a note about what was changed or added. But do everything you can to get the essential tax information to the colleges ASAP.</p>
<p>What? February 15th? My IDOC says it’s due March 1, 2011? I’m confused…</p>
<p>Check each school’s website. My S’s IDOC says March 1 but each school says they want the IDOC info by Feb. 15.</p>
<p>Where is this written that ALL schools say this? Because my school that requires IDOC says it’s March 1, 2011 that it’s due?</p>
<p>All <em>my</em> S’s schools said Feb 15th on their websites. If all your schools say March 1 on their websites then you’re all set. But if you’re just basing it off what the IDOC letter says, that may not reflect each school’s internal deadline. My S’s IDOC letter said March 1, but his schools’ finaid websites said February 15th. At least one school told me that if we missed that Feb. 15 deadline, we probably wouldn’t get an award letter before May 1!</p>
<p>Well I’m not really sure how tax returns work, but the reason I got from my NCP for not being able to file the tax returns was that he actually has to pay something (he makes a decently large amount of money) and for this reason has to wait until near the deadline to make sure everything is correct.</p>
<p>Disney, I understand that your dad doesn’t want to PAY what he owes until April. BUT that doesn’t mean he can’t COMPLETE his tax return and have the accurate numbers to put on your NCP Profile form.</p>
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<p>This is true…but Feb 14 is a lot earlier than APRIL…which is what the OP put in his post. </p>
<p>The year your child is entering college as a freshman is NOT the year to delay completing your taxes until APRIL.</p>
<p>Your dad could complete the Profile using estimates but IF the school prepares a financial aid package based on estimates, the package will be an ESTIMATE only and will be subject to change once the tax returns are submitted. Do you really want to NOT know what your real financial aid package is when you accept your admission to a school on May 1st?</p>
<p>Fill out the forms for IDOC but wait to file them with the IRS.</p>
<p>I called CollegeBoard about the deadlines and they said that almost every school’s deadline only refers to the CSS/FAFSA. The extra forms (tax returns, NCProfile, NCParent’s Statement, Business/Farm Supplement, etc) are not due so soon.</p>
<p>Maybe I’m wrong. I hope not, though, because my NCP left last month and, although he’ll be back in the middle/end of February, he claims that he can’t do tax returns until April.</p>
<p>Fallen Angel, check with each college. Most schools have all of their deadlines laid out pretty clearly on their websites, but if in doubt, call. I wouldn’t assume that the College Board can speak for each of your schools. If you know you will need to miss a deadline, you will need to find out how each school wants to deal with that. In my limited experience, there seems to be a wide variation between schools.</p>
<p>Each college has its own requirements for supporting documents AND the deadlines for receipt of those. If you cannot meet the deadline, I would strongly suggest you contact the college(s) with a GOOD reason why this cannot happen and ask them what to do. They have these deadlines for a reason.</p>
<p>Yes, some colleges specifically require the tax forms to be submitted in February. However, a good faith estimate that is 96% correct, followed up by a revision later, is much better than missing the deadline.</p>
<p>But how are you supposed to estimate tax returns? Don’t they require the official copy?</p>