<p>I just went through the filing process for the FAFSA with my son. I estimated our income based on 2012 taxes and doubt they will change much if at all for 2013. My husband owns his own small business and is never able to file his business and therefore our personal taxes until October. How will this affect our grant/loan eligibility on the FAFSA?</p>
<p>The federal deadline for filing taxes is April 15…</p>
<p>Thanks, I guess I should have mentioned he gets an extension every year to file in October.</p>
<p>What kinds of schools are you looking at? Some state schools last year refused to process FA applications without the IRS retrieval being completed, no matter what. If you are selected for verification, you’ll be unable to receive any kind of federal aid without verifying info (either with a tax transcipt or the retrieval tool).</p>
<p>If you’re applying to private schools with their own institutional aid, almost every school wanted copies of my paents’ tax returns to verify info before giving me my FA package.</p>
<p>I’m sorry, that was a pretty useless post from me.</p>
<p>FAFSA also has a deadline for corrections/updates, and it’s in September. Each school may have some other deadline. From my understanding, federal funds cannot be disbursed until it has been updated and finalized. Colleges will make an initial financial aid offer by the original numbers, but its only an estimate-- the package will not be finalized and money not disbursed until FAFSA/Profile has been finalized with tax info-- I believe the deadline is just up to the financial aid office at each school.</p>
<p>If you do not update by FAFSA’s deadline, you should be selected for verification on the numbers you provided. If you miss the school’s deadline, they may have similar hoops to jump through. This process can delay your final financial aid package, and perhaps sacrifice any priority advantages. Considering school will have already started by then, I really don’t know how you could have aid by the time school started. Perhaps it could be applied retroactively or something. You’ll have to work closely with each financial aid office on this.</p>
<p>Schools may give you a preliminary estimated FA package but it will not be finalized not will any aid be disbursed, until you actually file your tax return. If you are selected for verification you may not even get a preliminary award until you have filed.</p>
<p>If there is any way for your husband to file earlier, this year would be a good time to start.</p>
<p>
Where have you heard this? FAFSA can be filed until June 30th of the school year (i.e. June 30th 2015 for the 2014-2015 school year). I have never heard of any September deadline for FAFSA.</p>
<p>The aid package cannot be finalized till you file taxes.
It would be the year to get them done so you can finish applying for financial aid by the deadline.</p>
<p>I misread the deadline, as swimcat mentioned, the correction deadline is in September of the following year, so that’s not an issue.</p>
<p>Thanks for all of your help. I sent the link to this thread to my husband and he has been talking to his accountant about speeding things up this year.</p>
<p>This morning I went to the fafsa site to look at my son’s SAR and we have been selected for verification. Yeah! 
I understand the need to get those taxes done ASAP is even more important now. What else does this mean? Is this common? What things should I start putting together for this process? Will all of the schools he is applying to ask for the same type of information? My son was not going to make a decision about where to go until we could compare the financial packages. Is that still possible?</p>
<p>It’s not uncommon to be selected for verification. In the past part of it was just random selection but in the past couple years they’ve been trying to make it more targeted. We had a big change in income from one year to another and were selected for verification.</p>
<p>In many cases, once taxes are done and processed, using the IRS Data Retrieval Tool on the fafsa site to pull over the IRS information will satisfy verification as will ordering and sending in a tax return transcript to the schools. The DRT will be available on the fafsa site sometime in early February. Being selected for verification can be more cumbersome the first year since you are dealing with multiple schools. Schools may also have a couple forms to be filled out and sent in.</p>
<p>I don’t know how a school is supposed to finalize an aid pkg by the time school starts when your H won’t file taxes until October. Using 2012 info is just a guideline…the school will have no idea if the income is much higher/lower for 2013.</p>
<p>What kind of schools is your son applying to? If they’re the ones that give grants, then they probably require CSS Profile and will really consider your H’s business (its worth, the deductions, etc).</p>
<p>If your child is applying to FAFSA only schools then your income is probably too high for federal grants anyway. </p>
<p>As for loans, it would be hard for a school to know if you qualify for sub loans, but would qualify for unsub loans of $5500 for your son.</p>
<p>My son was not going to make a decision about where to go until we could compare the financial packages. Is that still possible?</p>
<p>Doesn’t sound like this will be possible.</p>
<p>All schools will wait for the verification to be complete. And that will be done with 2013 tax info. </p>
<p>You’re in a pickle. Unless your H gets his taxes done VERY SOON, I dont’ see how you can compare pkgs in the spring.</p>
<p>Did your son apply to any schools that give large merit awards for his stats? If so, then those won’t depend on FAFSA.</p>
<p>I sent the link to this thread to my husband and he has been talking to his accountant about speeding things up this year.</p>
<p>Speeding up? Like by February? Seriously, if you’re expecting a FA pkg in March/April so that you can compare before the May 1st decision deadline, then the taxes would need to be complete in a few weeks.</p>
<p>All of this may be for naught. Can you tell us more? What state are you in? What schools did your son apply to? Are you middle income (around $55k)…upper middle income ($85k+) …or more?</p>
<p>I’d hate for you to be worrying about all of this if your situation is such that you wouldn’t get grants or sub loans anyway.</p>
<p>If you have “very close” estimates, would you be able to file at least your personal taxes this month, and then possibly file an amendment later when you have the exact information, if anything changes? I don’t know what happens for financial aid purposes if you have to amend your federal taxes after your financial aid offer is finalized, but I would hope/assume that if the changes are very minor, there wouldn’t be major repercussions.</p>
<p>We are in SC and he has applied to Clemson, Anderson, Winthrop, Wofford, and a couple of out-of-state private institutions. My husband’s business has not been doing well since the recession and value of it is next to nothing. We do qualify for grants.</p>
<p>He is going to do his taxes as soon as possible. I don’t know what that will mean, but I can’t imagine it will be before February. So that means we won’t be able to compare packages as we had planned? Oh my …</p>
<p>Few can do taxes before February, but early February would be best if at all possible.</p>
<p>So that means we won’t be able to compare packages as we had planned? Oh my …</p>
<p>You’ve been selected for verification, so until that’s cleared (with filed tax documents), there’s really no pkg that they can prepare for you. </p>
<p>The CSS Profile schools may be a pain for you since they will “add back in” some of your H’s business deductions as income. </p>
<p>Does your son have any financial safeties? Those would be schools that you know FOR SURE will be affordable with ASSURED merit or ASSURED grants or family funds …and a small federal loan.</p>
<p>What is your estimated EFC using 2012 info?</p>
<p>Others can chime in here, but from what I’ve seen, the verification process seems to delay everything.</p>
<p>charlestonmom, if you absolutely cannot file by, say, the end of February, contact each school individually and ask if they will give you a financial aid estimate based on your estimated information. Since you seem to have a good idea what the numbers will look like, you should be able to get a reasonable estimate from schools willing to do this for you. Schools will of course have the right to change the final package if your financial situation turns out to be different than you estimated, and I would assume that they will not disburse any aid until you have submitted your tax returns. But hopefully you can get a close enough idea to know which schools will be affordable or not.</p>
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<p>I would say more accurately that they <strong>may</strong> add back in some of your DH’s business deduction. My DH also runs a small business, but that does not seem to have happened for us. Indeed our Profile-based family contribution came out lower than our FAFSA EFC for those schools that used it, though that is not typical.</p>
<p>My husband’s business has not been doing well since the recession and value of it is next to nothing. We do qualify for grants.</p>
<p>Also…you may have been selected for verification if your estimated income sounds too low for your family to live on.</p>