I know I should have got it done by January but I held in off and now I am in a tight spot.
I lost my parent’s tax information last year, I can only guess for the FAFSA tax information.
When I guess (which is by a long shot) income tax information, can I fix it afterwards? It’s particularly the estimating gross income tax that is freaking me out, since I think I can change parental income. I don’t want to get trouble but I am already in the frying pan.
I’m very worried and concerned about what to do. Also I don’t want to get prosecuted for fraud or anything (and losing my aid is the last thing I want to happen due to my actions getting me disqualified).
Background Info: I need to finish it tomorrow (well technically Wednesday) in order to help get my Cal-Grant renewed. The Cal-Grant’s critical for me to be able to get my education and without it I don’t know what I’ll be able to do.
Fortunately, this will be seen as a silly thing to look back at.
By the way, if it helps I go to a certain CSU in the San Diego region.
Do the best you can, and amend it later. The date that counts is the date it’s submitted - it can be corrected later.
Not to be too nosy, but why can’t you just ask your parents for the information you need? And if you don’t feel comfortable answering that question, that’s okay.
Yes, it would be helpful to ask your parents for the gross income on their last pay stub from 2015, or W2.
They should have that by now.
Also when are they planning on doing their taxes?
You can file a FAFSA with estimated income numbers, if you don’t know they taxes paid amount yet, then leave it blank for now.
After your parents file their taxes you need to update the information by linking to the IRS data retrieval tool from the FAFSA.
But if you are required to report assets (don’t qualify for simpliified needs or auto 0 EFC), then you need to ask them for balances of checking and savings accounts and investments (non retirement assets).
Those get reported as of the day FAFSA gets submitted.
If you do not have the 1040 to use for the FAFSA, you can always use the IRS DRT tool that the FAFSA site offers. This will pull your parents tax information (if they already filed) straight from the IRS database and fill out the income section of your FAFSA for you. it will fill in MOST of the sections, but there are a few that you still need to fill out yourself. make sure you don’t correct any of the information that is transferred over, otherwise it will make a note of that and notify your school that you changed the information.
Good idea to get familiar with this tool now because soon enough, a lot of schools will require that you use it in the not so distant future.
but it is best to submit FAFSA early with estimated numbers (if all other options are not viable) just to get that early date on file. You can always correct it later.