When exactly is the deadline to link it?
My parent’s filed a married joint return and it was completed 4 weeks ago(still pretty late as well). They hired an accountant to do their taxes for them. I asked my parents if it was done electronically or by mail and they said they don’t know since the accountant did everything. They did get their tax return emailed to them from the accountant so I’m assuming electronically? I already completed my fafsa way back in February.
EDIT: I just looked over the tax return and it was indeed filed electronically. My parents had to pay $30,000 to the IRS.
Did they mail tax a tax return to the IRS or sign Form 8879 and return it to their accountant?
Did your parents have to pay the IRS any additional taxes?
You know…the accountant could,easily have mailed the return to,the IRS, and emailed your parents a copy.
I hope that Madison85 can correct me if I am wrong, but I think that tax preparers who file more than a small number of returns for clients are required by the IRS to file electronically. The question that Thumper1 asks is important – if money is owed, that may delay the availability of DRT.
Yeah they did sign form 8879.
I just looked over their tax return and the “electronically” box is checked and also the “form 8879” was checked too. So it was sent electronically, but then why can’t I link it to the IRS?
@thumper1
Yes, they had to pay $30,000 to the IRS.
The accountant emailed the first and second page of the tax return to my parents. They also gave a physical copy that has like a hundred pages.
Has their $30,000 payment to the IRS cleared? If not, I don’t think you can link to the IRS Data Retrieval Tool until it does.
When you file electronically, you are given a form that you then mail in with your payment. When you mail anything in…the processing time can be upward of 6 weeks…or so we were told.
I hesitate to ask this…but why did they wait until the beginning of April to file?
$30,000 is an unusually large amount of tax owed with filing. It’s not surprising that OP is experiencing a delay with linking FAFSA to the IRS.
@thumper1
My dad said he paid with check by mail on April 15.
Looking at the date on this tax return, it actually says that it was completed on March 11. I asked my dad when he got this tax return and he said March 11 as well. So it has been over a month since this tax return was done.
Am I going to lose any money since I will be really late to link the tax return to the IRS? Then again, I will be receiving little aid anyways but it’s better than nothing.
My understanding is that when you owe (as opposed to getting a refund), the important date for being able to use the DRT is not when the return was filed, but when the IRS receives and processes the payment.
What was your family income? With a tax payment of $30,000, you would not exactly be low income, right?
If your parent didn’t mail the check until April 15, it will be 6 weeks from that date… maybe longer until you can link to the IRS DRT.
My family’s(family of 3) income was 111,000. I received no aid from my state schools and received some aid for a couple private schools. I’m likely going to attend a private college so it’s better that I receive some money to cut back that expensive private school cost.
Yes he mailed it on April 15 because apparently it was due on April 18 so he wanted to wait till the last minute. I had no idea it would interfere with the linking.
Is that $111,000 income your parent AGI?
Are they self employed?
Yeah, and they are self employed.
I think you need to contact your colleges ASAP. Right now, your financial,aid awards are estimates…based on whatever it was you filed initially. And yes…when the actual 2015 tax info is updated, it CAN change your financial aid award.
it doesn’t sound like you have updated the FAFSA…or did you do so entering the numbers manually?
Was there a difference between your submitted earlier FAFSA and the actual 2015 numbers?
You can update the FAFSA with the final numbers from the return and it will send a new copy to all your schools. They should be able to determine aid with that before you are able to link electronically. It will take around 3 weeks from when the payment processed. I’m sure they wanted to wait as long as possible to pay which is understandable. For the private schools often they will want the CSS profile too which you may need to update as well and upload the return with idocs.
You need to check your schools. Not all Profile schools participate in IDOC.
But yes…update the FAFSA to reflect the actual tax return numbers. Change the status to “taxes completed” and submit to all of your schools.
The thing is…with a 100 page tax return it sounds complicated. The schools will want to have this return in some format. @dcplanner seems to think you will,be able to link to the DRT three weeks after you check for payment clears. That will still be after May 1.
That is why I would suggest contacting the colleges. Also, if really the numbers are the same for 2015 as for 2014…perhaps yoir current aid awards will be accurate.
But with a $30,000 IRS bill…it would seem that something might not be the same as last year.
So…redo the FAFSA manually and resubmit.
Contact the schools about what to do about the Profile.
Also, you can ask if a copy of the tax return will suffice until you can link to the DRT.
@thumper1
It already did change. I updated my FAFSA as soon as my parents gave me a copy of their 2015 tax return(in March). I got a good amount of mail a couple weeks ago saying my financial aid got revised and got new estimates of my aid. It did change a lot since my estimated numbers I put in February was off a lot.
Only one of my schools required a CSS profile and I did contact them and they just told me that I don’t need to worry because they will just use what I entered in on my FAFSA.
Excellent! Then you are all set for now.
Check the FAFSA everyday. You just never know when you will actually be able to link. Keep,checking…and link as soon as possible.
@thumper1
Do you still want me to contact all my colleges or am I good? They already gave me my revised aid, do they still need a copy of the tax return then?
https://fafsa.ed.gov/help/irshlp14.htm
Looks like it could be up to 4 weeks when e-filing and balance due.