<p>I found further information on the internet that supports the author’s recommendation. I found multiple references to an EFC Formula Guide (e.g. <a href=“http://ifap.ed.gov/efcformulaguide/attachments/111408EFCFormulaGuide0910.pdf[/url]”>http://ifap.ed.gov/efcformulaguide/attachments/111408EFCFormulaGuide0910.pdf</a>) which has worksheets for manually calculating the EFC. Lines 10 & 11 on page 9 and Table A2 on page 18 show that the FAFSA questions 89 and 90 are being used for a Social Security Tax Allowance. Using just the amounts in the W2’s Boxes 1 and 8 would result in an incorrect allowance for some people.</p>
<p>The website [FinAid</a> | Financial Aid Applications | Income Earned from Work](<a href=“Your Guide for College Financial Aid - Finaid”>Your Guide for College Financial Aid - Finaid) has a good explanation as it related to the 06-07 version of the FAFSA, but I think the problems and workarounds it noted are still relevant for the 09-10 version.</p>
<p>My conclusion is that the directions for FAFSA Q89 and Q90 as well as the CSS-Profile PI-155 and PI-160 questions are incorrect, incomplete, and/or misleading. I also noticed that the directions on the online form, the web worksheet, and the instructions PDF listed in a previous post are not entirely in synch.</p>