The women I spoke to has now put me on hold twice and spoke to her supervisors and I’m getting the same response…
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Please please come back here and tell what you did!
My hubby had forgotten about my rollover and forgot to check the box.
My EFC was more than our gross income, so I called FAFSA and they were able to match the rollover amount with the number listed in the question “Untaxed portions of IRA distributions and pensions”.
So they told me that they cannot correct it on the phone and will send me a paper form and I need to make the paper corrections. They sent the paper form which was filled and I started comparing with online form, the question numbers on online and paper printed version did not match , so I had to manually track the actual question and I did the correction (Refer screen shot Q89e) and mailed the paper work.
the main challenge was I did not know how to map my W2/1040 to these boxes so I tried to find the pdf which will give me instruction. The online version instructions cannot be read so I had to find the from with instructions, here is the blank form.
some other corrections which I did are below.
Education credits – I was not sure why I have XXXX in education credits, I asked another parent and she also had XXXX, technically based on the instruction the number should be 0 so I went ahead and updated that.
Tax Deferred Pension - Hubby had counted additional boxed from W2 so I redid the math and corrected it.
No proof was required, the parent and student had to sign it . I mailed them all my document by Nov 6th and called them to see when I can see the correct EFC, they said it will take 2 weeks and on 19th November got an email saying the information was processed and my EFC was reduced by 50%.
I have again called them to see how to verify if the colleges have received latest info, the lady who spoke to me said my son will have to call them, which is actually not true so I have to call again and find a knowledgeable person and try to see if they can show me in the system to verify if colleges have received the latest EFC.
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Thanks so much @phemrajani ! This is very helpful. I never would have figured out the 4A+5A minus 4B+5B thing. So if 4A 5A and 5B are zero and 5A is the amount of my rollover, I just put zero?
Yes, because you exclude rollovers. Here is the pdf of the FAFSA form if you want to fill it out, working thru the details will help when you call the colleges to fix this (unless you can get a hold of someone on the FAFSA line that is knowledgeable and can send you the form to fix it like phemrajani did).
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This literally makes no sense to me. I spent 30 minutes with someone at FAFSA who told me no such form exists and I have to call every school. I’m so frustrated
Well…since you likely have to confirm with each college…why not just start there.
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What did you end up doing?
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Because that is a complete pita to call all those schools for one. Two, they all do the financial aid stuff at different times. I’ve already called two. One told me to call back in January and the other said March. Shouldn’t be this difficult. The women I spoke to (who was very nice) agreed and outright said the data tool for the IRS is not always accurate. WTH!!!
It is accurate IF you note you had a rollover and the amount. Otherwise, it includes it as income.
This is definitely something that needs to be a LOT clearer when the FAFSA is completed…
Or there needs to be some easy way to correct it online by the FAFSA filer. Ridiculous the way this is handled now…and it sounds like NOT consistent!
The rollover tool is absolutely correct. I can’t believe that a FAFSA rep would say that - she should be retrained. The tool simply carries over information from the 1040. Because so many people miss the question regarding rollovers, I certainly believe that something needs to be done to make it clearer. But the rollover tool does what it is designed to do.
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The data retrieval tool does what it’s supposed to do. I’m sure that’s what you meant!
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Completely agree. Whether or not its accurate, you still should be able to go in and make corrections. But to not even be able to make corrections the second you hit submit? Ridiculous. And now the person above was able to get some form to fix theirs but yet I spent 30 minutes speaking to someone and she had no idea what I was talking about. Even put me on hold twice to ask her supervisors.
Just ask FAFSA to send your SAR. (I’m still not sure what to do with my SAR now that I have it - but that’s the first step).
I think what she probably meant was when you use that tool, it shouldn’t lump that amount in with your income like its doing (or whatever its doing to make that the reason we are seeing these high EFC’s) Clearly I never saw a box either (and this is my 5th year filling out that dang thing)
I did…she said that even if I get that SAR I can not make changes to it so its pointless. I still have to go through each school.
My issue is local scholarships or scholarships not attached to a specific school. Some ask for your EFC. I have nothing to show that the EFC is not what its now showing. She agreed that its frustrating but there was nothing she can do.
@phemrajani said they sent the form (to where) and their EFC was corrected by the FAFSA folks.
Maybe she can clarify exactly what she did…again.
This is insane.
Yup, my head is spinning. When I tell you that the women I spoke to literally had no idea of any form and insisted under no circumstance could anyone at FAFSA correct the form, I’m telling you she said this multiple times. I don’t have it in me to call FAFSA again. lol
I meant that the Data Retrieval Tool is doing what it is designed to do. It is unable to figure out the rollover amount due to the way that the amount is recorded on the 1040. The IRS system can’t separate that out, which is why there is a follow up question. Because the DRT does correctly import information from the 1040 into the FAFSA, there is no reason to allow changes to the information. At one time, people could go in & change the imported information, but they were changing things that should not have been changed. They were changing income and tax information. While we see a lot of people with the didn’t-check-the-box-for-the-rollover issue here, the actual number affected is low. Federal Student Aid determined that the number of affected applicants is low, and any system fix that would enable going back in and making a change themselves to that information is therefore not a priority (I asked at a conference). They do have a way for people to report the rollover, by checking an appropriate box (which people very often miss).
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Did you do a paper signature for your original FAFSA submission?