<p>I tried for three weeks to get the IRS link to work before giving up and calling the school. A Financial aid person said that people filing as Head of Household or Married filing separately can’t use the retrieval tool this year.</p>
<p>There may be something to the theory about it taking longer for those who owe taxes. I filed S1’s on 02/06 and I still can’t use the tool. I filed ours and D1’s around the same date. We were both getting a refund. I was able to retrieve our data about 10 days after filing and D1’s after 14 days. I still cannot import S1’s who owes money due to scholarships covering more than just tuition and books. I also set the e-file not to take the money out to pay until a week before the due date. Any one else who has to pay waiting longer than 3 weeks besides me?</p>
<p>I was told by the IRS both by phone and by email that when you owe money the return isn’t fully processed until at least one week after payment is received. My son was in this boat and I had him send in payment right away. So now waiting to see if the what they told me is true.</p>
<p>I owed money this year, and let the IRS take the payment out of my account.</p>
<p>The first time I tried the IRS link it worked, this was maybe 3.5 weeks later. They took the money a couple of days after I filed. If you sent in a check, maybe it takes longer.</p>
<p>I neither owe nor am I getting a refund. I broke even so that doesn’t explain why it isn’t working for me; u had the taxes prepared by H and R as I always do and have never had any issues. And I received the link that said the IRS accepted my return. Not sure who to call. I called the college and they said call Fafsa, Fafsa said to call college and IRS. I am getting a bit frustrated especially since we filed by the deadline. She needs all the aid she can get and I hope this delay in using the tool is not going to cause her to lose out on money.</p>
<p>I also owe taxes (and wasn’t planning to send in my check until mid April) and haven’t been able to use the IRS link. I e-filed on Feb 3 and have tried to use the link every day for the past 2 weeks. No luck. Perhaps it’s because they haven’t received my payment yet so my tax return is not completely processed. Will probably just give up and enter info manually…</p>
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I hope that is not the case. Why do they give you the option of when to deposit the payment if it isn’t completely processed until they receive payment? I will wait another week and see if I still can’t import the data. Since my son is a returning student his first due date is April 9th at his college.</p>
<p>They give you the option because most filers don’t need to use the fafsa retrieval tool or to get a tax return transcript so it doesn’t matter when they process the return.</p>
<p>To those who filed their FAFSA without using the retrieval tool make sure you contact the college to verify they will process your application. I was told by my son’s college that they won’t process his until I am successful with the retrieval regardless of whether I complete it without it. That is why I am waiting on completing his.</p>
<p>P.S. I don’t know if this is true of all the private’s as my daughters public indicated I didn’t even need to use the tool for hers.</p>
<p>If any of you that owe and have not made your payment have been successful with the retrieval please let me know. Since I e-filed I don’t see any way to change the debit date without filing an amended return so I am hoping I will not need to do that. Also, if anyone can confirm what annoyingdad was told I would appreciate it.</p>
<p>Fafsa just emailed me and said that the IRS just notified them that they are running at least a week behind schedule, so if it would normally take two weeks to be in system, it’s running about three weeks, and they advised me to try again in a few days.</p>
<p>Kdog044, I was not able to use the retrieval tool until my check was cashed by the IRS. I e-filed in January, but since I owed instead of a refund this year, there was a long delay in processing my return. I mailed the check a couple weeks after my return was filed, called the IRS and was told my return would not be processed until after the payment was received. I was finally able to use the tool yesterday to update the FAFSA.</p>
<p>hutch14, thanks for the update. I guess I will just keep trying and see what happens. It ****es me off as the payment was less than $50 but I hate giving the government money any early than I have to (even if it’s my son who is paying). Fortunately, the drop dead date for my son as a returning student is May 1st so if I have to wait until a week after the payment is made on 4/13 I should still be okay. As a reference, can you tell me the time frame from when you mailed the check until you were able to use the retrieval? I would think an electronic debit would be faster since they don’t need to wait for a check and then deposit it.</p>
<p>It was about two weeks from the time the check was cashed until I was able to use the retrieval tool. I know what you mean about sending the money early. I too was going to wait until April to give the IRS their due but decided to send it earlier since I was having so much trouble getting the tool to work - glad I did. I have never before owed, always getting a refund, but I didn’t expect the $1000 child tax credit to go away this year. For some reason, I thought that was good until the year they turned 18.</p>
<p>Well I still can’t retrieve D’s tax info even though she filed a few days before we did and ours finally worked about three or four days ago. She filed on TurboTax’s free 1040EZ and we paid an accountant $500. I guess you get what you pay for!
So we submitted fafsa using estimated numbers back in January and we’re stuck at this data retrieval part. Is she okay on deadlines or is this a FA filing process problem that we should worry about? According to Where’s My Refund, she’ll get her $12 on March 6th.</p>
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I would keep trying if you are getting a refund. I efiled our 1040 return on 02/06 and my daughter’s 1040EZ on 02/03. We were both getting a refund. I was able to import our info by 02/15 but my daughter’s did not import until 02/25. You would think the 1040EZ would be available before one with schedules especially since we filed it earlier.</p>
<p>^^Your filing dates are pretty close to ours. I think D’s was between the 3rd and 5th and our was filed on the 9th. I’ll keep trying.</p>
<p>I e-filed around February 1. </p>
<p>The IRS dinged my account on Feb. 6.</p>
<p>I successfully used the IRS link on Feb 25. I did not try before that, so I don’t know when exactly it would have worked.</p>
<p>Since I am late to this thread…this might be redundant, but I just wasted way too much energy and stress worrying about this. I called her college again and they said they already have her FAFSA and her package is together and being mailed this week, and that they didn’t need the data retrieval tool, as too many students were having issues so they decided to waive it. This is Pace University, ftr. I know every college has differing rules, but thought you could use this info.</p>
<p>I tried almost daily from the time my return was accepted (efiled, refund). It took 3 weeks for it to finally accept the link (and almost that long for it to show up on the IRS “Where’s my Refund” site). I filed HOH, by the way, so that doesn’t seem to matter. Don’t know about married-separate.</p>
<p>I did make sure my street address was exactly as it appeared on my tax return, in my case that involved not putting a period after N. Streetname. Don’t know if that mattered, it seems to be more of a matter of waiting.</p>
<p>My refund is taking much longer than normal this year too. More than a month with efile and direct deposit, that’s usually a week-10 days.</p>
<p>My advice: keep trying every couple of days and make sure your info matches exactly.</p>