<p>I am trying to fill out my FAFSA for 12/13, but I will not have my taxes finished until the end of the month. I want to estimate for FAFSA purposes, but I have no idea how to do this because my 2011 income is very different from 2010.</p>
<p>I went from having part time employment and self employment income in 2010, to only having part-time employment in 2011. </p>
<p>My husband went from having full time employment in 2010, to being on unemployment for half the year in 2011, and working several short term jobs for the other 6 months of 2010.</p>
<p>What happens if my estimates are very off? Does this get my application rejected or flagged in any way?</p>
<p>Is it really that bad to wait until February to submit my FAFSA?</p>
<p>If you have your most recent pay stubs from all of these jobs, you can figure out what your income was, and how much you paid in federal taxes. Then spend some time at [Internal</a> Revenue Service](<a href=“http://www.irs.gov%5DInternal”>http://www.irs.gov) to track down the forms you will eventually need for filing your taxes, and do a preliminary “draft” of your 1040. That way you will have figures for the FAFSA.</p>
<p>I just did this for our household today. I know the figures are not complete, and our final numbers will be a bit higher. The last two years I filed the FAFSA much later, but Happykid will finish her AA in May and needs to finish her transfer applications by 2/1 which means that a preliminary FAFSA is necessary.</p>
<p>It doesn’t matter. Put in whatever numbers you want. You will update them when you file your taxes. Note any awards given before you update your numbers can change when the actual numbers are in.</p>
<p>NO…don’t just put it “whatever numbers you want”. Put in the BEST possible estimates you can possibly make. You can use our 2010 taxes as a guideline and then make adjustments up or down based on the information from your year to date information on pay stubs, and any other income information you have for 2011.</p>
<p>The 2012-2013 FAFSA became available for online submission on January 1, 2012. You should do it in keeping with the deadline for the schools to which you are applying. If the school has a January deadline…here’s what you do.</p>
<p>File your FAFSA using a “will file” status which means you WILL file your taxes but have not yet done so. Use the BEST possible estimates based on your end of year pay stubs, interest statements etc. Then submit it to the school(s).</p>
<p>Do your taxes as soon as reasonably possible after Feb 1 when you have all of your 2011 documentation. Go back IN to the FAFSA website and amend your FAFSA to reflect the figures from your 2011 completed tax return and resubmit to the college(s). Change your status to “taxes completed”. </p>
<p>This is the year you want to get your taxes done as soon as possible. It is NOT the year to wait until April 15th to complete your taxes.</p>
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<p>Well…it depends. There are two things you must consider.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>What are your school deadlines? If they are in January, you need to do your initial FAFSA filing by the date indicated.</p></li>
<li><p>Remember that some federally funded need based monies are limited funds per school. This means that the schools have a limited amount to award and once the money is gone…it’s gone. This included Perkins Grants, SEOG (if the school has it), and federal Work Study. These are awarded on a first come/first served basis…so your initial filing of the FAFSA gets you in the “queue” so to speak.</p></li>
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<p>If you do your own taxes, just run the preliminary numbers through your tax software. This should give you a very good estimate and will save you from wading through forms/publications on the IRS site.</p>
<p>You should email the FA office re. the benefit of filing early with estimates. If the college in question does not give institutional need based aid (or if the college guarantees to meet need) and you know you won’t qualify for federal/state grant aid, there is probably no benefit to filing an estimated FAFSA in January. Of course, you should always file by the school’s priority deadline.</p>
<p>I often had to recalculate taxes when doing professional judgment cases. It’s not that hard to plug the numbers into the 1040 & do a rough estimate that should be close to what your actual taxes paid will be. Your financial situation sounds pretty simple, so it should be easy.</p>