Can you choose whether to look back one year instead of the two if you have your taxes done in time?
No choice. The tax year for the FAFSA will be prior prior from now on whether you want it to be…or not.
The FAFSA will become available in Oxtober for,the 2017-2018 school year, and will use 2015 taxes. No way you can have 2016 taxes done by then, right? Everyone will use 2015 to year info for that FAFSA.
But is this only for prospective (new) students, no?
Aren’t the deadlines for continuing students generally later (like end of April), such that their FAFSA (and Profile) could be prepared based on the previous year, rather that the prior previous year?
The prior prior tax info will be used by ALL students now. So,for,the 2017-2018 FAFSA…all students will use the 2015 tax return information regardless of when the FAFSA is completed.
The 2016 tax info will be used for,the 2018-2019 FAFSA.
Same rules for everybody. The idea is to make it easier to complete and less confusing. Different rules for different sets of students doesn’t accomplish that goal.
Everyone is correct - no choice. It will be a bit less confusing after next year, since it’s that first year that is difficult. There will be a new formula compared to the prior year, families may have different household sizes and numbers in college compared to the prior year, and assets may be different from the prior year … meaning that even with the same income as was used in the prior year, the EFC will differ.
OK, so the prior-prior year business applies to the FAFSA for all students. What about the CSS Profile? Will they adopt this same thing, or will Profile schools still look at the most recent information available?
Yes prior-prior. See https://www.collegeboard.org/membership/all-access/financial-aid/board-trustees-unanimously-votes-move-prior-prior-year
As noted…both FAFSA and Profile will be using prior prior tax year starting with the 2017-2018 forms which will be available in the fall of this year.
I think there are some schools that only require CSS to be filed once. Those schools, of course, will just use what has already been filed.
I called my daughter’s school to ask about this new FAFSA “thing” because we were reconsidered for FA using 2015 taxes due to a large chunk of money included in our taxes that we can’t use. I spoke to our FA counselor and was told that this new FAFSA is beneficial to incoming freshmen because it will give them more time to decide on a school based on their package, which will be ready earlier. It is not beneficial to those freshmen asking for reconsideration because their package will still be delayed. There will be people asking for a reconsideration due to job loss, etc in 2016.
Our income in 2016 is less than in 2015 due to this large chunk of money that is not available to us now and was a one shot deal in 2015. I was told to get our taxes done ASAP because they are currently in the process of discussing how to handle reconsiderations and they may ask for taxes and documents from 2015 and 2016.
It does get confusing when asking for a reconsideration. Which year should they look at? I was told by both FAFSA and the school that they can decide how to handle it.
‘They’ can decide how to handle it, but ‘you’ have to file the FAFSA forms for 2017-2018 using the 2015 taxes. You can then ask for reconsideration. The filer has no option on which year to use, but the school can consider all kinds of things when reconsidering the FA.
Yes we are using our 2015 taxes when we do the FAFSA and profile this October. I was told to call the school at that time and they will tell me what other documents, if any, they will need. They already have copies of the reconsideration documents from last year. They may ask for 2016 taxes, or they may not.
You won’t have your 2016 taxes when you do the FAFSA and Profile this October.
If the school decides to request 2016 taxes for reconsideration requests ( they are not sure what they are doing yet as this is all new) then I will send them in as soon as possible.