<p>Hey all,
I am a 25 year old independant student. I filled out my FAFSA using my 2009 tax information that was retrieved from the IRS website via the FAFSA tool. Once it was processed, the SAR said I had an EFC of 0, however I went through the SAR and it had my income from work listed as $999,999 for some reason. I corrected the mistake and input my actual work income ($13617) and now my EFC is upwards of 4500. I was wondering if anyone knew why this happened, or how I can lower my EFC again.</p>
<p>The only two sources of income I had were 4 monthes of work ($13617) and 8 monthes of unemployment benefits ($8005), $2400 of which was not taxable. </p>
<p>Any help or tips would be appreciated. Thank you.</p>
<p>I am not aware of any problems with the IRS retrieval system, so I am surprised that your income from work was incorrectly entered by the system. Was your original EFC 0 or was it blank (which means that it was not actually computed)? This is really odd.</p>
<p>As for the change to EFC when you entered the amounts, that makes sense given the numbers you cite. However, I am wondering if you input the correct information. Is the $13,617 from line 7? Or is it business income? If it’s business income, only the number on line 12 is reported (or 0 if the amount on line 12 is negative). </p>
<p>You should report income from work as the amount on line 7 + the amount on line 12 (0 if that amount is negative), AGI, taxes paid as line 55 (line 35 for 1040A, line 11 for 1040EZ), and $2400 other untaxed income due to the untaxed portion of unemployment income.</p>
<p>The original EFC was zero, not blank. The $13617 was from box 1 of my W-2 from the company that I had worked for. In box 1 of my unemployment W-2 it says $8005. I guess what Im wondering is 1) Why the IRS retrievel system was wrong and 2) Does an EFC of 4500+ seem accurate for someone who only made what was stated above? I mean that essentially means that 1/4 of my yearly income from that year could be put towards tuition right? That seems a little off to me and makes me question whether or not I filled it out correctly. Thanks in advance for any advice.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, that EFC is correct for an independent student with no dependents. I assume your income from work reported is the $13k, the AGI is about $19-20K. Your taxes paid were probably 0. The EFC would be correct given this info. If you add in the $2400 untaxed unemployment compensation (if you did not report that on the FAFSA), it would be even higher. Students without dependents other than a spouse are expected to contribute a huge portion of earnings to school.</p>
<p>I am very intrigued by the IRS data retrieval error. I work in financial aid, and I have not heard of any issues with the tool.</p>
<p>Yeah the error was very odd. I filed my taxes online with H & R Block’s online system. Maybe there was some type of incompatability between their system and the IRS’s. And thank you for all the info. I appreciate it.</p>