FAFSA, More Changes 2017

The only thing true about college is that things are always changing.

The DRT/Data Retrieval Tool was introduced a few years ago to help families pull information from their tax returns into the FAFSA forms.  It was designed to eliminate the need for verification since the information was coming directly from the IRS.  However, there were significant security issues last year.  So, the DRT was turned off and many FAFSA filers were not able to use it.

In the interim, the IRS and Department of Education made changes in order to "enhance the security and privacy of the sensitive personal data transferred into the FAFSA form from the IRS."  Starting this year, the information brought over will be encrypted.  Users will be unable to see the data when they access their tax forms with the DRT and the information will remain encrypted when it is transferred to the FAFSA.  The data entry fields will show "Transferred from the IRS" instead of the data. 

The colleges will be able to see the actual data and make any adjustments required.

Since the information will be encrypted, some changes need to be made both in the "income earned from work" questions and in the instance of IRA rollovers.  Because the FAFSA formula gives an allowance for the extra costs incurred when both parents are working, parents have to enter in how much each made from working.  In the past, the combined income was transferred from the joint tax return.  Now, the amount earned from work by each parent will need to be entered in manually.  In the event of IRA rollovers, parents (and students, if applicable) will need to indicate whether or not an IRA distribution includes a rollover.  If it does, the amount of the rollover will need to be indicated.  The processor will then deduct the amount "rolled over" from the total in the income calculations.

One problematic outcome of this change is that the correlation between income and the EFC will not be evident since the income data will be encrypted.  Manual calculations will be necessary.  If you need help in this regard, please contact Katherine O'Brien directly (kob@CelticCollegeConsultants.com)