<p>well I’m glad I’m not the only one who was surprised that the $2500 credit was in 2 different spots on the 1040. the line 49 part reduces the taxes you owe and the line 66 part (1000) is added to how much taxes you pay. It doesn’t change your refund (I don’t think) but I did have to look 2x at that line on the fafsa and think, HUH??</p>
<p>
It doesn’t change your refund if you have enough tax liability that you can use the entire $2,500. But if you don’t, it makes a BIG difference if that other $1,000 is on line 66 instead of line 49.</p>
<p>^
right - not everyone has a tax liability of over $2500.</p>
<p>Let’s say that before the AO credit is applied your tax liability is $2000. The non-refundable credit reduces that liability to $500 and the refundable credit gives you a bonus $1000 from the government.</p>
<p>If prior to the AO credit you have a tax liability of $500 then the non-refundable credit is only $500 making your liability $0. You then get a bonus of $1000.</p>
<p>By separating out the two numbers you are simply reporting your tax liability prior to applying the AO Credit.</p>
<p>I have a hard time believing that the FAFSA folks didn’t have time to incorporate AO into the instructions. It was signed into law last March. Like others posting, I went by the line 49 instruction for my reporting.</p>
<p>OPer here.
(interesting that this question now has further attention now that ppl are actually doing their taxes)
father05 - thanks for your research, even if it threw things back into question. On my “will file,” I had your first scenario, not choosing to put anything because I’d only been offered the Hope or LLC choice, in both the worksheet and the on-line FAFSA. But when the FAFSA or SAR is printed out, the line is called “education credits.” So it was after that that I posted the question. I was satisfied with SCM’s response so didn’t try to find a better answer from the feds, and I’ve figured I’ll correct it to use the line 49 amount when I do the “have filed.” Guess we’ll see then exactly what the effect is on EFC, as I think our agi is only going to be about $25 different.
rockvillemom - please let us know what answer your son’s finaid office comes back with; I suspect unless some of the FAOs start calling FAFSA, this won’t be addressed.
kelsmom - we need you.</p>
<p>Swimcatsmom wrote:
The Hope this year, for Midwestern disaster area students, is $3600 and can include room and board expenses. If the sibling of a student in a MW disaster area is used to claim the Hope their max is the regular $1800.
These credits seem to be getting more and more complicated.</p>
<hr>
<p>Where did your statement about the $1,800 limit for the second student claiming the Hope come from? I couldn’t find anything in the Pub 970 to suggest that limit. According to Pub 970, each student is eligible for the full $3,600:</p>
<p>“The maximum amount of Hope credit you can claim in 2009 is $1,800 ($3,600 if a student in a Midwestern disaster area) times the number of eligible students. You can claim the full $1,800 ($36,000) for each eligible student for whom you paid at least $2,400 ($4,800) of qualified education expenses. However, the credit may be reduced based on your MAGI.”</p>
<p>I believe that applies if one student is in the MW disaster area and the other isn’t.</p>
<ul>
<li>You can claim the Hope credit only if at least one eligible student is attending an eligible educational institution in a Midwestern disaster area (see Table 2 on
page 6 for a list of qualifying disaster areas).</li>
</ul>
<p>Above is a quote from the bottom of page 1 of the 2009 8863 instructions.</p>
<p>Below is a quote of the 2009 paper FAFSA, line 92a</p>
<p>a. Education credits (Hope and Lifetime Learning tax credits) from IRS Form 1040—line 49 or 1040A—line 31.</p>
<p>bthomp - perhaps I worded it badly. If one sibling is in the MW disaster but the other is not then only the sibling in the disaster area gets the higher $3600, a sibling not in the disaster area is only eligible for the $1800. If both are in the MW disaster area then they would both be eligible for the $3600. Of course they would both have to be in the 1st 2 years of college to be eligible for the Hope. So anyone in the disaster area that has more than I student will have to figure out if the Hope or AO will be more beneficial to them overall.</p>
<p>Well, I spoke with the FAFSA people and my son’s university - and they agreed - the answer is $1500. Only the $1500 reported on line 49 should be on the FAFSA - not the entire $2500. So, I did a corrected FAFSA this morning - and my EFC went up a few hundred dollars. Errgghh. My son’s university said they do 100% verification anyway - so they would have caught it and fixed the FAFSA for me, had I not realized the mistake. Liked the first EFC better, but that’s how it goes.</p>
<p>RVM, something tells me that there’s going to be a lot of financial aid offices doing a lot of corrections this year for just this line.</p>
<p>What scares me is that after I put some numbers down and looked at the formula again, the line 49 thing does make perfect sense. It doesn’t really matter what the actual credit is, it’s the total of the taxes paid plus the credit that is the adjustment. So if the credit was more and the tax was less by the same amount, it’s a wash on the FAFSA. Sometimes I am a little slow…but it still seems like it could have been put on the forms better.</p>
<p>Here’s why I think the line 49 value makes sense as the one to enter ($1500): FAFSA question 85 asks for parent income tax and refers to 1040 line 55. This is the amount of your tax before the line 66 credit (refundable $1000) further reduces your tax. Therefore, it makes sense – if the point is to not increase EFC due to the AO credit – to increase the line 55 value only by the line 49 credit. The refundable $1000 (line 66)has already, effectively, been added in by using line 55.</p>
<p>Sorry if this is, by now, obvious. But I hadn’t seen it expressed this way in the thread.</p>
<p>Actually, if FAFSA question 92a had omitted the parenthetical “(Hope and Lifetime Learning tax credits),” there would have been less ambiguity. But it does say to use 1040 line 49.</p>
<p>Registrant…You are the first poster to mention Line 85 on the FAFSA, which asks for parents’ income tax. That line is causing me headaches as FAFSA keeps instructing me to check for errors. The error message states, “The amount listed for 2009 Income Tax Paid is significantly HIGHER than last year but your Adjusted Gross Income isn’t significantly higher.” I am reporting exactly what my 1040 has listed for Line 37 (Adjusted Gross Income) and Line 55 (Income Tax Paid). I have never run into this problem in the two previous FAFSA reporting years. I am beginning to think that the amount of Income Tax Paid is somehow being affected by the credit amount from the American Opportunity Credit. Is anyone else experiencing “error messages” regarding 2009 Income Tax Paid when filling out the online FAFSA report??? If so, any suggestions/solutions?</p>
<p>^
Ouch. Is it true? You can look at your old form and check.<br>
If you qualified for and took the entire $1500 Non-refundable AO Tax Credit then that deduction is included in Line 55.<br>
Look at last years return and see what your education credits were - they were all non-refundable so they all were included in calculating Line 55. If you had $2000 in education credits last year then you only have $1500 this year (the other $1000 being refundable).</p>
<p>For instance if your tax calculates to be $2500; and you took the whole $1500 AO non-refundable credit then your net tax is $1000. Last year if your tax was $2500 and you took $2000 in education credits then yor net tax was $500.
The Refundable credit of $1000 and the MWP credit of $400 are recorded as “tax payments” and used to determine your refund (or liability).</p>
<p>Thanks for your reply JustAMomOf4. I do think the difference between the AO credit versus last year’s Hope Credit is responsible for my higher Income Tax Paid number. On my '08 tax return I had a FAFSA reportable Income Tax Paid of $1,254 ($3,054 - $1,800 Hope Credit = $1,254). Now on my '09 tax return I have a FAFSA reportable Income Tax Paid of $1,956 ($3,456 - $1,500 AO Credit “non-refundable” = $1,956).</p>
<p>As a result, my '09 Income Tax Paid is $702 higher than '08 while my Adjusted Gross Income is $2,072 higher than '08. It seems reasonable to me, especially with the effect of taking the AO Credit. However, FAFSA continues to point out that I may have made an error in this year’s reporting because my ITP is significantly higher while my AGI is only slightly higher. I don’t know how to “fix” this. After all, I’m using the lines on my 1040 as requested by the FAFSA questions!</p>
<p>I am so happy I read these recent posts before I went in to do my corrected FAFSA! Ha! The same thing happened to me. I even went back and checked all my inputs to TurboTax to make sure I hadn’t screwed something up. But no… I think it must be how the education credits are being calculated.</p>
<p>Anyway, it dropped D back into Pell range so that’s helpful, and processed without an *.</p>
<p>Thanks for using real numbers Tpath makes it easier to follow.</p>
<p>FAFSA has a lot of places where they warn you about potential errors which are not errors, it is just very extra sensitive, IMHO</p>
<p>Is it possible that a submitted FAFSA will still be processed even though the SAR Report continues pointing out that Adjusted Gross Income & Income Tax Paid may be incorrect (continues to flag them with the “lower case h” on my SAR report)? My fear is that the processing of my FAFSA will come to a halt due to these two flagged items.</p>
<p>TPATH: If you end up speaking with the FAFSA folk about this, I’d very much appreciate you posting their answer. We’re hitting it too.</p>