<p>from a CNN article: "The IRS said that it needs until mid- to late-February to reprogram its processing systems because Congress acted so late this year cleaning up the tax code. The bill, which includes deductions for state and local sales taxes, college tuition and teacher expenses, wasn't signed into law until Dec. 17."... "Though itemizers can work on their tax returns before the IRS is ready to accept them, the government said people should not send them in before it is ready to process the returns."</p>
<p>What does this mean for the Feb 15 finaid deadline?</p>
<p>I would check with the school and see if they consider the “estimated” FAFSA as meeting the deadline, or if they use the “final” FAFSA date. I thought all schools would use the first date to satisfy that requirement but other posters last spring said otherwise…hopefully colleges will be aware of the IRS delay and people won’t get caught between a rock and a hard place on this!</p>
<p>Use estimates…and then amend your FAFSA and Profile. I seriously doubt that the schools are going to change their deadlines because of an IRS snafu. The schools also have an NACAC deadline whereby students must make a matriculation decision by May 1. If the schools delay their deadlines, it makes it difficult to process all of the financial aid applications on time and get the awards to the students.</p>
<p>This isn’t the first time this has happened. It happened twice in the 7 years that we were completing these forms for our kids. We used estimates (but very good ones) and then amended.</p>
<p>My understanding is that if you are using the tax prep software, you CAN fill in the blanks and get the computations as they stand now. You wouldn’t want to submit until the IRS gets its act together (OK…laugh out loud) but you would have better estimated numbers than if you guessed.</p>