email from FAFSA yesterday; what does this mean?

Paying for College
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<p>Received an email from FAFSA yesterday that said the following:</p>

<p>"When you completed your 2014-2015 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) you indicated that you had filed an IRS tax return when you provided your financial information. It appears that you may have been able to use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool, which allows you to view information from your IRS tax return and transfer that information directly into your FAFSA. The benefits of using the tool is that it's the best and easiest way to provide accurate tax information and it also eliminates the need for providing a copy of your tax return to the financial aid office. We recommend that you go to <a href="http://www.fafsa.gov"&gt;www.fafsa.gov&lt;/a> and access the tool through your FAFSA and easily transfer your tax information.</p>

<p>If you find that you are not able to use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool we want to encourage you to confirm the accuracy of the income information you reported on your FAFSA. Keep in mind that you should not update other information that was correct at the time you filed your FAFSA. For example, do not change your answer for household size (question 73) or for number in college (question 74); unless your answer was incorrect as of the date your FAFSA was originally signed. Thank you for your attention to this important matter."</p>

<p>The email was addressed to DS, not to me as the parent. I had already done both our and DS's tax returns when I completed the FAFSA, but I did not use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool. I had tried that in the past and it didn't work, so I just entered the numbers manually. </p>

<p>Is this just a routine email, or is FAFSA thinking that there's some discrepancy on DS's tax return? (We filed a tax return for him because he did make money from a summer job last year, but he received a full refund because he was below the threshold for paying taxes.)</p>

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<p>You could send an email back confirming that the information that you submitted on your FAFSA was correct and that no corrections are necessary.</p>

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<p>It may take some time for the DRT to work if you owe tax at the time of filing or if it is a first time tax return. If you cannot verify the FAFSA by DRT, the school may ask for documents for verification. I thought we fill up FAFSA properly and did the update after tax return, but still the DRT found some difference and the EFC went up much higher. I think it is reasonable for FAFSA to request DRT update as there may be careless mistakes like mine.</p>

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<p>Billcsho, did you have any rollovers? If so, the DRT will artificially inflate your EFC because it doesn’t know to remove the rollover amount from income. I always suggest checking to see what changed in the DRT process so you can be sure there aren’t any problems like the one I reference … although often it is just that the person overstated taxes paid!</p>

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<p>It’s a routine email - no response (or other action) is needed, although you can always try the DRT (data retrieval tool) again to see if it now works.</p>

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<p>I wonder if when you use the DRT they know the information matches, otherwise they might have to check it through verification.</p>

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<p>@kelsmom I actually found out the issue after the DRT. I have the AGI entered correctly but the IRA contribution not. In the FAFSA calculation, it put back the IRA contribution into the AGI as net income. So the difference came from my IRA contribution. The DRT corrected that.</p>