This is a question I’m posting on behalf of my friend. He was updating his 2015 FAFSA when he ran into an error.
On the FAFSA he filed January 2014, he put his parents’ tax expense as a zero (instead of 1,000), because he read the wrong line on their tax return. He can’t edit it now, because that form has passed. Now, he was updating information on his FAFSA from January 2015 with the correct tax expenses, but the FAFSA site denied his update because they noticed that the tax expenses changed too drastically and found it suspicious.
He is worried that due to his error in 2014, it will count as fraud. He has been freaking out all week about it, and I’m not sure what to do. He didn’t do it on purpose, it was just an honest mistake. So, is this fraud? How can he go about it if charged? And if not, why is it not fraud and what are next steps he can take to getting his FAFSA updated so he can file for 2016?
If anything isn’t clear, please let me know and I’ll update ASAP. Thank you!!
I don’t think the size of the error is enough to have affected aid greatly. So I wouldn’t ‘freak out’ over fraud charges if he didn’t have any gain, which most likely he didn’t.
I didn’t know you could update your FAFSA from Jan 2015 this late. That may be the only issue. If it really is an issue with the size of the change, 0 to1,000 is a huge change percentile-wise, but only a minor change in actual dollars.
Why is your friend not posting for himself. It doesn’t make sense that he made a mistake in jan 2014 and is now trying to correct jan 2015. This is not clear. They will not prevent new info in a subsequent year as anyone’s tax info can change.
I also advise to call the FAFSA hotline but have all the papers in front of you and be clear about each year and actual numbers.
@BrownParent Thank you so much for your reply and tips. As to why I’m posting for him, he doesn’t have a college confidential account (I don’t think he even know was CC is) and has been asking me questions about this issue and has been freaking out about it for the last few days and since I don’t have the answers myself I decided to post his question here.
And yes, apparently you can still make FAFSA changes (I personally don’t fill out the FAFSA so I wouldn’t know). He was updating his parents’ tax expenses to make it up-to-date, but when he tried to do this update that’s when FAFSA notified him of his January 2014 error.
Sounds like it may have been his parents’ projected income and taxes. I’d call the FAFSA 800 number. Takes a while to get off of hold but once you get someone on the line they are very helpful. I concur about this not seeming to be worth a lot of angst. A difference in income that would change a tax burden from zero to $1000 is not a big change and it suggests they have a very low income either way.
Reporting zero for tax expense instead of $1000 (and no other errors) could result in a higher EFC, not a lower EFC. I doubt it would be looked at as ‘fraud’ to potentially receive worse aid.
It seems your friend is not getting much help from parents with this.
For this year when he files FAFSA it is ok to estimate income when he first files it in January. But then the tax returns should be done as soon as possible and then he can go in and correct the FAFSA and use the IRS retrieval tool to have info from tax return brought over right into the FAFSA, which then should be correct.
He should also see if his Financial Aid office offers any assistance with filling out FAFSA. If he is low income he should get all the aid possible.