Okay so my dad was unemployed for about half of 2015. He received unemployment benefits for the other half. The AGI shown on my tax return forms includes his unemployment benefits, but when the FAFSA asks for his working income, it doesn’t ask me to add up the space on the tax return where his unemployment benefits are written. When I include my dad’s benefits, my parents’ incomes add up exactly to the AGI. But when I add what the FAFSA asks me to add, it doesn’t add up to the AGI. My question is, should I add his unemployment benefits to his specific income or not? Can I have some kind of phone number I can reach too if no one can answer my question? FAFSA has pretty bad customer service…thank you 
No. The unemployment benefits are not W-2 income, and they are already reflected in the parent AGI that was reported on FAFSA.
https://fafsa.ed.gov/fotw1617/help/parentIncome.htm
Yes, that should be correct. We put AGI on one line of FAFSA, that included W2 income, unemployment benefits.
Then on the line where it asks for income from working we only put wages from box 1 of W2.
Line 7 on tax form 1040 is wages, line 12 business income and line 18 farm income, line 14 other gains or losses.
Income from working is used to calculate social security tax deduction for FAFSA. Since unemployment income doesn’t have FICA taxes withheld they don’t ask for it in that question.
Can someone speak English or at least use terms I understand please. I finished my fafsa and left my mail unnoticed now I am having this exact problem stated by prapti.
Basically fafsa says there is something wrong because my agi is above what my parents made. for example my parents made 20000, my father made 10000, and my mother made 5000, my dad was unemployed and received compensation which was 5000. I put the 10000 and 5000 of my parents for a total of 15000 but fafsa puts a red x on it and says it cannot be submitted. So where do i put the 5000 from the unemployment compensation?
This is driving me crazy and this is the only forum to display my exact problem. need help asap plz
Did you try calling FAFSA help?
Why aren’t you using direct transfer?
Your AGI is $20 David. You need to have your tax return with you to do the fafsa. If the numbers don’t match…rejected!
Madison is saying you can import from tax return info to avoid this.
Both of you…the OP and the other poster…use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool. Your tax return info will be ported over to the FAFSA exactly as it is in you tax return.
When you are in the parent financial information tab in FAFSA and it asks for tax return completion status, choose “already completed”, choose what kind of tax form they filed, 1040, 1040A etc, then I think it asks for number of exemptions (you can look that up on the tax return, usually 2 for the parents if filing taxes married jointly and then number of dependents). Then see if you can “link to IRS” with the data retrieval tool and it will bring numbers over from your parents’ tax return.
When the DRT is done you might have to enter work income for parent 1 and 2 in separate boxes, because it gets added together on the tax form. So enter your dad’s work income (not unenployment benefits) and then your mom’s in the right parent 1 or 2 boxes. Then you and one of the parents that has a FSA ID have to sign the FAFSA and press submit.
The FAFSA will then know the total work income of your parents and also the “Adjusted gross income” AGI from the tax return, which includes the unemployment. It just doesn’t want you to list the unemployment benefits with the income from working since from the UE benefuts no social security taxes were withheld.
Hope that makes sense.
Thanks to everyone here. I asked at school and it was what everyone said here but they used simpler terminology. I appreciate the help. Cheers