<p>A little public service announcement that i hope helps anyone struggling with this:</p>
<p>Pull up your return and make sure you enter your mailing address into the IRS retrieval form EXACTLY as it appears on your return. </p>
<p>I killed myself with this last year and this year, again did it wrong the first time (my address has an "East" in it, and a "St." at the end...but the period - or lack of it - after "St" matters and the fact that I put "E" instead of "E." or "East" also matters.</p>
<p>We filed just a couple of weeks ago and were able to use the tool for both myself and S today. And my return had no period after St and his did, and we had to make sure my retrieval lacked it and his had it.</p>
<p>Hope this helps someone :)</p>
<hr>
<p>PS: also don't forget the "t" in "trouble" when starting a topic here on CC...I can't edit THAT :(</p>
<p>Excellent word of advice. I believe this happened to me also. </p>
<p>I put Avenue instead of just Ave.</p>
<p>Thanks for the tip! I promptly tried three or four different possible spellins of things.</p>
<p>One more hint, if you have a refund coming, use this:</p>
<p><a href=“https://sa2.www4.irs.gov/irfof/lang/en/irfofgetstatus.jsp[/url]”>https://sa2.www4.irs.gov/irfof/lang/en/irfofgetstatus.jsp</a></p>
<p>Once the refund is approved, you should be able to use the FAFSA retrieval tool. It’s a quick way to see if your taxes have been processed and the data is now ready for retrieval, it’s a lot faster than entering all of the information on the retrieval tool.</p>
<p>Thanks for that tip, entomom!</p>
<p>entomom thanks! I hadn’t made the connection but I did use that tool the day before I re-checked to see if i could do the IRS import into FAFSA. </p>
<p>Good to know.</p>
<p>Please help–I am so confused! I e-filed our tax return last week and immediately filed the FAFSA choosing already filed in the status of return box. Now I see that the IRS has received our return, but has not yet processed the refund. When I logged into the FAFSA to see how to link to the IRS retrieval tool, there doesn’t seem to be anyplace to link it. Is this because the return hasn’t been processed yet? My concern is that now the FAFSA is showing as “saved” but “not submitted”. Yikes!</p>
<p>Yes, the tool can’t be used until the IRS processes the return. Has your fafsa been selected for verification? Did both the student and parent sign and submit the fafsa with PINs when you filed the fafsa? What did you select for the student’s tax return status? If you haven’t been selected for verification it isn’t required to use the tool. If you signed and submitted the fafsa, did you make any subsequent change that would make it show a saved status?</p>
<p>@annoyingdad – Thanks so much for your reply! I’m thinking that the IRS has not processed the return yet, but has received it, and that is why the retrieval tool doesn’t work. We have not been selected for verification, but the school requests that you either use the IRS retrieval tool or send a tax transcript as part of the financial aid application. Last year I had to file an amended return so only the tax transcript was an option. The student did not file a return (not required), and both student and parents signed and have pins for the FAFSA. It’s a strange thing about the FAFSA, if you log back in and go to make corrections, but don’t make any changes, it shows the FAFSA as saved but not submitted. I’m hoping that this is not significant since last week the FAFSA showed as submitted.</p>
<p>If it showed submitted last week then you should be fine at this point. When “where’s my refund” shows refund processed, then give the DRT another try. There should have been prompts to use the DRT once you changed to have filed and a blue link shown. Are you saying you never got those prompts? But yes, the DRT won’t actually work until the return is processed.</p>
<p>Yes, I think that you are right and once the return is processed, the DRT should work. I found this link on YouTube that clarifies the process a bit. It seems that the answers to a few of the Parent Tax Info questions on the FAFSA may have been keeping me from getting the prompt to reach the DRT. This video recommends answering no to the five Parent Tax Info questions (I had answered yes to the last question, have you filed your return within the last three weeks). Once I made that change on the FAFSA I was able to reach the DRT and was linked to the IRS website. It didn’t work yet, because my refund hasn’t been processed, but I’m hopeful it will shortly. Thanks again!
<a href=“IRS Data Retrieval Tool - FAFSA - YouTube”>IRS Data Retrieval Tool - FAFSA - YouTube;
<p>Were you selected for verification? I used already filed as an option and was NOT selected for verification. I asked on this forum if there was any reason to wait and update with the DRT. (D will be a junior and her school does not verify everyone). Kelsmom posted and answer and said no. There was no need to update.</p>
<p>Hi ordinarylives – thanks for the feedback. While I wasn’t selected for verification, D’s school is very specific in their requirements for the financial aid package. They either want the DRT or an IRS transcript. This is in addition to the IDOC package that was sent to the College Board with the actual signed tax returns. I guess they just want to verify everything.</p>