<p>My parents are self employed and own their own business, and they won't be able to get the taxes filed for their 2012 income until February or possibly even March. I know for a fact that their 2011 income is significantly less than the 2012 year, so would it be practical to put their 2011 income in for 2012?</p>
<p>On FAFSA, should I wait until February/March to give the 2012 income, or go ahead and put in the 2011 income for the 2012 blank and update it in February/March? Will this put me in front of others in the queue for financial aid if I complete it sooner even if it is inaccurate information? When does FAFSA check if the income you provided is correct, if they even do?</p>
<p>Sorry for the excessive questions, thank you in advance.</p>
<p>File the FAFSA with last year’s numbers and get yourself in line. Better to have your aid package shrink because of increased income than to get no aid at all because the money was all used up before your application was filed.</p>
<p>Or sit down with your parents this weekend and ask them to do an estimated return for 2012. It’s a time-consuming process, I know . . . but why use numbers that you know are going to give you an inaccurate result, especially if you need to compare financial aid offers?</p>
<p>That’s the problem though, they can’t. With a business, they told me that annual gross income varies greatly each year, so how could they possibly estimate last year’s gross income? </p>
<p>That’s why I asked if it would be a better alternative to go ahead and use 2011’s income and update it in February/March. I already know of 2 scholarships of which I am eligible for that I do not believe take gross income into account. One of which I have just discovered as I type this has a deadline of February 1st. It’s starting to seem like I have no choice.</p>
<p>By looking at their revenues and expenses and estimating. I’m not saying it’s easy . . . but it’s certainly doable. (I do it every year.) And if you know that their 2012 income was significantly higher than 2011, I don’t see much point in submitting figures that you know will give you an inaccurate financial aid award.</p>
<p>I am self employed but I keep records of income and expenses all year. We file FAFSA with estimated numbers in January (already did it for this year) then update them with the actual numbers when we file (Feb-March…not later).</p>
<p>Thanks for the replies guys. We just did FAFSA, and while it is more accurate with ballpark estimations than if we used 2011 information, I fear that it might be somewhat off. We stumbled upon some confusing aspects of it and had to change numbers up various times.</p>
<p>Would a somewhat inaccurate FAFSA affect scholarships that DON’T consider your family’s gross income, but simply academic achievements? We can always update it, but would that push us farther back in the queue of students receiving financial aid? Or are we already set in line because we have completed the FAFSA?</p>
<p>No - schools use the date filed. The only problem you would run into would be if your parents do not actually file until after the school’s deadline for finalizing aid. For example, if you are selected for verification & have not filed taxes before the school’s verification deadline - or if you are required to update your FAFSA from Will File to Filed before a certain date.</p>