<p>Okay, I just spent an hour on hold and talked with various IRS departments. They told me that whether you owed money and paid or not has no bearing on the return being processed (i.e. the information available for IRS retrieval). They did say that refunds are processed first though. I think I will keep trying for the next few weeks and see what happens. My son will be on spring break in another week and we can call the IRS if needed. They wouldn’t give me any specific information on my son’s return unless I had power of attorney. Never mind I did his return for him. I didn’t feel like calling back and waiting on hold for another eternity to impersonate him (sheesh).</p>
<p>When I called the IRS they would discuss my son’s return with me since I put myself as Third Party Designee on his return. You shouldn’t need power of attorney or need to impersonate him if you do that in the future.</p>
<p>Well I decided to call the IRS back and did not tell them I wasn’t my son. What I did find out was they didn’t start processing his return until 02/16 which is 10 days after I filed. When I asked them why so long I was told because I (my son) was a first time filer. He worked last year but didn’t make enough or have enough taxes worth filing. His return is not finished processing and they said it wouldn’t be completed until 03/05 at the earliest. That makes sense as D1 filed last year and obviously so did I so our returns were able to be processed faster. </p>
<p>Apparently, verifying your identify is an issue that delays your return if you never filed, so hopefully next year this won’t be the case. I will wait a few weeks and check again. It’s a good thing he is a returning student as he has 3 weeks longer to submit his application than first time students.</p>
<p>I also spent close to an hour on hold with the IRS this morning. The person I talked to said that refund returns are processed immediately, but that returns with taxes due are processed approximately one week after the payment (not just the return) is received, or in mid-May, whichever comes earlier. Transcripts and data retreival are not available until after the return is processed. I wish they would tell you this somewhere in either the transcript section of the IRS website or on the FAFSA website.
Interestingly, he initially told me that all returns with tax due are held and not processed until after mid-May, and that I would not be able to get a transcript until then. It was only when I pushed him by asking where I could find this information in writing in a publication or on the IRS website (thinking it might be useful evidence if I need to discuss this with the financial aid offices), that he came back and said the part about processing one week after the payment is received. He did say this info is only in their internal guidelines (which he was reading aloud to me), and not anywhere on the website.
I know this conflicts with what other posters have been told, so I don’t know which is the correct answer.</p>
<p>I agree with Lulusmom - see if the colleges on your list require this or not. Both of my son’s schools do not require that we use the IRS data retrieval tool - for which I am very thankful - seeing the stress it is causing.</p>
<p>I work in the financial aid office and we have been hearing the same complaints. Here are a few things we have learned in the situation: The IRS is more than a week behind in making the information available, there is a system overload because of different college due dates and the recent notification of the need to use the tool, and that some students have said that they just kept trying and it finally went through.</p>
<p>This is also happening for the request of transcripts.</p>
<p>ijokeg, can you confirm the actual answer regarding the processing of returns where money is owed as we seem to have conflicting information from the IRS? Is there any truth to the information not being available by IRS retrieval or transcript until after payment was received?</p>
<p>We e-filed income taxes on Feb 11, it was accepted by the IRS and I manually updated our FAFSA with the updated numbers on the 13th. I still can’t get the IRS retrieval tool to work. However, the numbers on our FAFSA all match the filed tax return, and it doesn’t say “selected for verification” anyway. Colleges seem to have downloaded the info. I’m thinking I should just assume everything is fine and quit bothering with attempting the retrieval tool any more … unless some FA expert says otherwise?</p>
<p>What the IRS told me before I smartened up and called my d’s college was that they are definitely 3 weeks behind, that they had my return but have not processed it and won’t get to it before March 8th… I filed the 15th; and that the reason the tool isn’t working for everyone is because of the backlog due to do many returns being filed on the Feb 15th deadline; he said he did not think it mattered whatever you owe or not.
And in any case I am thinking many more colleges will opt put because it affects them too; they have to get these packages out and to perspective students so as not to lose them.</p>
<p>Weatherg, I’d check with your child’s school but obviously the colleges are still able to access the Fafsa info without the tool, as my d’s college did so and has already mailed out her package this week.
It makes you almost wonder if the delay for some is purposeful, so the govt can keep their hands on the money a little longer, given the economy.</p>
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I wouldn’t assume anything and urge you to check with the college to see if they require the retrieval or not. I’d hate to see your application not being processed because the school is waiting on it. It seems to vary across schools (at least with my son’s private and daughter’s public).</p>
<p>P.S. Having copies of the returns may not be enough. My understanding of why they are going to this IRS retrieval is people are actually sending falsified returns to schools.</p>
<p>That makes no sense as far as the false returns being a reason. I don’t know any colleges personally that don’t require Fafsa, which requires your recent IRS filing info. I’ve been in college myself the past three years and have never brought my actual return to the college. It’s kind of difficult to fraud the process IMO though maybe I am naive.</p>
<p>The only time a data retrieval/transcript is required by federal regulations is when the FAFSA is selected by the processor for verification AND one or more of the items for which it was selected are income-related. The latter is new this year. In the past, if the FAFSA was selected, everything had to be verified. Given that this is new, as is the requirement to use transfer/transcript, many colleges did the wise thing and either required all students to link or strongly suggested they do so (since if they have to do it later, it can hold things up). Some colleges have made it POLICY to require from all. Whatever the school requires is what the student must do. The IRS issue is absolutely a topic of discussion in the finaid community. The info I saw indicates that the IRS said returns with refunds might not be processed until May, but they didn’t tell ME, so I can’t say it is the gospel truth. </p>
<p>My suggestion stays the same. If you do not HAVE to use the tool in order to file your FAFSA for a school, do it the old fashioned way now & try to link afterwards. Unless the school tells you that you cannot file at all for them unless you use the link, that seems like a very wise way to do it, IMHO.</p>
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That’s my problem. Although son’s school told me I could complete the FAFSA now and link later, they also told me they would not process the application until the link was successful. I am just trying to find out if in fact I will be unsuccessful until the payment has been made to the IRS as it is set to debit on April 13th which is past the schools’ due date. At least if I knew this for a fact I could talk with the school and explain it.</p>
<p>I would still file now, then link when you can. The school will not be able to verify your file until the link is successful, but it doesn’t hurt to get the FAFSA on file as soon as you can.</p>
<p>kelsmom, the kicker is they already have copies of the tax form as they use the IDOC service and I mailed that weeks ago.;)</p>
<p>If you were selected for verification by the federal processor, and if the item seleted is an income item, the school is required to have you link or provide a tax transcript. This regulation is new for 2012-13.</p>
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Is that only for private’s? My daughter’s public indicated they didn’t need to use the retrieval tool and could still use copies of tax returns. Both have been selected for verification every year I file (D is rising senior and S is current freshman).</p>
<p>Your selection criteria may not have included an income item, but your school may still verify income for all verifications. In that case, linking/transcript would not be required (linking/transcript is a federal reg, and if the school is choosing to verify an item not required to be verified by ED for that particular student, a tax return would work). This is my GUESS … remember, I left finaid last summer. However, everything I have seen indicates that linking/transcript is required WHEN ED selects an income item for verification.</p>
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What you are saying may be true but my son’s school is REQUIRING the linking or a tax transcript for ALL parents and students regardless of FAFSA flag or not. See below from their web site:</p>
<p>New this year for student and parent tax filers: Your taxable income must be verified by using the FAFSA’s IRS Data Retrieval Tool or by comparing it to an IRS tax transcript.</p>
<p>P.S. Excuse my ignorance but what is ED? I can only think of Early Decision and don’t believe that is what you are referring to.</p>