Due to a quirk in this calendar year, many (if not all) federal employees may have 27 pay periods reflected on their W2s for CY2015, not the normal 26. This means you may show total pay received that is higher than your grade/step. This may definitely have an impact on your EFC.
The quirk is that paychecks will be issued in advance of the January 1, 2016 (Friday) Holiday. So you may want to check with your payroll office.
And then tax year 2015 will be used twice in a row for FAFSA…BUMMER!
@Madison85 - Not sure what you mean?
See this thread:
@CollegeDadofTwo Starting for 2017-2018 financial aid, the FAFSA application will begin around October of the previous year (2016) with the tax return figure filed earlier that year (for 2015 income). So the 2015 income will be used in FAFSA for both 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 school years.
unbelievable
That may actually work in our family’s favor as DH will receive a step increase in 2016.
Of course, for most federal employees it’s not so great for financial aid purposes.
Is the extra pay period just due to how the pay periods fall in 2015?
the date issue is that January 1 is Friday and that Friday is payday. So agencies will be depositing paychecks on the 30th.
I see. Thanks for the clarification.
It’s only payday for half the federal employees. The other half get paid the other ‘every other friday’. Well, actually when I was there our official pay day was every other Thursday, although we all got direct deposits on the Monday preceding that Thursday. The official payday of Thursday was a hold over from the days when you could get a hard check and they’d mail those on Monday to get to you by Thursday. To get people to use direct deposit, they promised a direct deposit on the Monday before. Now direct deposit is required, so everyone gets paid on Monday but the official day is still Thursday.
right, which is why I said “many”
“many (if not all) federal employees may have 27 pay periods”
That sentence doesn’t exactly say ‘half’
Even if you are paid a day early, that shouldn’t change the official payday of Jan 1, and the W-2 should still have the pay period in 2016. I’m pretty sure that when I was paid early (Christmas 2014 we received our pay on the Thursday before the Monday payday) the official records stayed the same. Have you been informed that there would be 27 paydays in 2015?
I work for s state agency and we had 27 pay periods a few years ago. They gave us a heads up about it fairly early in the year in case anyone wanted to adjust any withholdings, etc.
It might not just affect federal employees.
When a payday (Friday) falls on a holiday, which I think 4th of July did this year, my H’s pay gets deposited on the Thursday before instead. So we also might end up with 27 pay periods this year.
Back when he used to get paid weekly, we had 53 pay period years a few times.