<p>I'm applying to colleges for fall 2015 admissions and was wondering what the process is for obtaining your income tax returns in a timely manner to complete the FAFSA and CSS Profile. I understand my parents must file their taxes as soon as possible once they get their stuff, but my mom has to paper file, as she has had her identity stolen. Will they get to the IRS in time for us to use the information?</p>
<p>I guess the TL;DR/less confusing question would be: Does the IRS have to actually get the tax returns and give us a copy of them before we can fill out the CSS and FAFSA or can we just copy the financial information from the tax returns before we send them to the IRS? </p>
<p>I'm not very well-versed in taxes so please inform me if my information as to how this works is incorrect
Thanks!</p>
<p>Yes, they should file early next spring. Are your parents filing jointly or are they divorced since you mentioned only your mom having to file by paper return? </p>
<p>With fafsa what you should do is file it early in January with estimated 2014 income information and actual asset information and select the ‘will file’ status. Then, as soon as the return is dropped in the mail or e-filed you can use that info to update the fafsa with the actual 2014 tax figures and change the status to ‘have filed’. If you are selected for fafsa verification, however, you will need to use the fafsa IRS data retrieval tool or get a tax transcript from the IRS and those do require the taxes having been processed by the IRS and paper filing does take longer.</p>
<p>CSS is often filed earlier with estimated numbers and then some schools want corrections provided later via various means. You need to check each school’s finaid website to see how and if they want corrections and by when. Some schools use the final fafsa update to update income estimates on the profile. Again, check each school’s finaid website to see what they want, how they want it and what the deadlines are. If a school’s deadlines for the profile allow you to wait until taxes are filed to submit it, you don’t have to wait until the return is processed, just submitted or mailed.</p>
<p>Check the IRS website to find the closest IRS office. Your mom (or whoever) can hand carry the paperwork in there rather than mailing it if it will speed things up. She can call them and ask.</p>
<p>I ABSOLUTELY LOVE YOU ALL RIGHT NOW. Thank you so so much for all of the information. So for one of my colleges, they want actual copies of the W-2’s and Federal tax returns (Boston College). How are you supposed to send those documents to the colleges? Mail? Fax? Thanks again!!</p>
<p>@thumper1 After Feb. 1? Why after? Boston College’s website says that they want a copy by Feb 1 of Federal tax returns and W-2’s from the most recent year. Is this even possible then?</p>
<p>So make copies of her paper federal return after she signs it and before she mails it. Each college may want to get the copy in different ways. Some allow fax, some prefer mailed, some use something called IDOC (they will tell you). So you need to do both - - send a copy of the return yourself (somehow) and also have the FAFSA pull the data in. At least that is what all of my kids’ colleges wanted.</p>