FAFSA filing season has
begun. Starting on Oct. 1st students going
to college in the 2018-19 school year could begin filling out a FAFSA
Form. This is the second year that the FAFSA started 3 months
earlier in October instead of January.
The other big change involved
the tax year that needed to be used on the FAFSA form.Two years
prior tax year is being used on the FAFSA which means for the 2018-19 FAFSA
form you use 2016 tax information for both the students and
parents.Taxes that for the majority of families have been
completed for some time.
One of the big advantages to
these changes is more families were able to use the IRS Data Retrieval
Process. The IRS DRT as it is called, allows you
to bring in most of your tax information directly from what the IRS has on file
and populates that information in the FAFSA. There are still some tax
questions that may need to be filled out manually but when it works for
families, it really makes filling out the FAFSA easier. You are
also less likely to be selected for Verification and have to provide more paperwork
to the college(s) you listed on the FAFSA. I like to
call it the “Ultimate Way” to fill out the FAFSA form.
Last March, the IRS
DRT was shut down for the 17-18 FAFSA form due to some security breaches.
It is still down for the 2017-18 FAFSA but it is available for 2018-19
form. To make it more secure, the
information that is transferred into the FAFSA from the IRS is
encrypted. Instead of showing the numbers, it just says
“Transferred from IRS.” At first this looked a little odd,
but I think it is worth it if the information is more secure. Having the IRS DRT available should mean less families getting selected for
Verification.
I want to encourage all families
that are filling out the FAFSA form, please use the IRS DRT if you
are able too. Families that are married filing separately or those
that file a Puerto Rico or Foreign tax return would NOT be eligible to use the
IRS DRT but most families now are eligible and remember by using it, you are
filling out the FAFSA in the “Ultimate Way.”
Erick Danielson - ICAN Ankeny & Des Moines Center
