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I am a tax advisor, so I deal with the full range of people filing their taxes. Many of these low-income families wish to stay off the grid. It has little to do with paying their taxes (if anything, they are neurotic about filing their taxes). They choose not to have bank accounts, and would rather take a printed check from the IRS to the pawn shop to be cashed (and pay a significant chunk to the pawn shop for the “convenience.” They do not want their tax information sent anywhere else. Some of them do decide to fill out the FAFSA, but many do not. It is their right not to share their information beyond the IRS (and me in my office). </p>
<p>What you are proposing would be far more complicated than you think - just the process of designing software to fill the tax forms each year is daunting. As a tax preparer, I would love to be able to (with client’s permission), pull data directly from the IRS for any forms that are sent to them. They can’t even do that, and you want them to forward information to fill out the FAFSA? </p>
<p>And when exactly would this data be pulled? Keep in mind, if we file the FAFSA online, we can have the data pulled with our consent, a week or two after we file (that’s how long it takes for the IRS to finalize your return). If you pick a date, many people will not have filed their taxes. Many people can’t file by then, because they don’t have all the information they need (and the IRS doesn’t have that data yet either).</p>
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What social benefit? There is a benefit to the potential individual student, there is not a benefit to society. Turn your question around - why should students have the right to access their parents financial information without their consent? Withholding data does not prevent the kids from attending school, it prevents them from obtaining need-based aid. Note that it does not in any way prevent these same kids from obtaining merit aid.</p>
<p>I’ve worked with many of these “low income” families, and as I stated, many can be convinced to give the data, if it is to their benefit. Others choose not to. May experience with many of those that do not makes me believe that perhaps we should not be giving their kids a free ride anyway. It is insulting that such a student feels entitled to a free college education, when a middle-class kid is expected to contribute $5,000 on their own as part of their EFC. That entitlement grows out of the attitude that they are entitled to all the help their family has been given at the expense of taxpayers. I don’t begrudge them that help, but at some point they need to be encouraged to work for what they want.</p>
<p>If their parents won’t share the information for the FAFSA, they have some reason for making that decision. I don’t take the idea of the government overruling that decision lightly. There are mechanisms in place to help those who are in a true hardship but uncooperative parents is not such a hardship.</p>