<p>My mom has been really overworked in the past few years and neglected to do her taxes... I know that tax records are required o apply for financial in some schools, but how recent do the records need to be, and for how many years?</p>
<p>You need your taxes from the previous calendar year. In other words if you are applying for financial aid for the 2013-2014 school year you will need your taxes for 2012. You can initially apply for aid using estimates, but are required update that information once your parents and your taxes are complete. Schools will not finalize your aid until that happens. </p>
<p>Some schools require you send copies of your taxes with your financial aid application. All schools that grant aid from the federal government are required to verify the information from a subset of their applicants (not sure what the percentage is) and if selected for verification you will be required to provide your tax forms.</p>
<p>FAFSA applicants selected for “verification” are no longer permitted to provide paper tax returns. To fulfill the income verification requirement, applicants must now either use the IRS data retrieval tool on the FAFSA, or submit IRS provided tax return transcipts.</p>