Deadline for submitting all application materials is May 1, 2013

The 2013-2014 Free Application for Federal Student Aid

The U.S. Department of Education created an enhancement to the FAFSA filing process by allowing applicants and parents to retrieve tax data from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).  This new process is called the IRS Data Retrieval Tool, which is the best and easiest way to provide accurate income information on the FAFSA.  Depending on when and how the tax return was submitted, you may be eligible to use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool. With just a few simple steps, you and your parents can view information from the IRS tax return that was submitted and transfer that information directly into your FAFSA.  Your family's income tax information will generally be available through the IRS Data Retrieval Tool 2 weeks after electronic filing and 8 weeks after submitting a paper tax return.

If the IRS Data Retrieval Tool is/was not used during the initial application, applicants may be required to update information to reflect the income and tax information reported on the actual tax return. We strongly encourage the use of the IRS Data Retrieval Tool to update this information after taxes are submitted. If families are not eligible or ultimately choose not to use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool to update the tax information, the U.S. Department of Education may require us to collect additional documentation, including a certified tax transcript that you would need to obtain from the IRS.  If taxes are submitted early enough to use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool on your initial application, there will be no need to make corrections to the tax information.

Although the FAFSA may be filed any time after January 1st, we suggest you file your FAFSA after you have filed your Federal taxes in order to take advantage of the IRS Retrieval Tool.  By doing so, you will potentially reduce the need for future corrections and will limit additional requirements requested by our office.  Indicate Brown as one of your FAFSA recipients by using our federal code number 003401. If your 2012 final Federal Income tax will not be complete by our May 1, 2013 deadline, you should still complete the FAFSA by May 1st, using estimates.

Please consider the following recommendations when completing the FAFSA:

a)   The parent who is signing the FAFSA and the student are each required to use their unique PIN# used to sign the FAFSA to retrieve their own IRS data 
b)  The address on the FAFSA needs to match the address on the submitted tax return for the IRS Data Retrieval Tool to be successful 
c)  Individuals who are filing “Married Filing Separately” or those who filed an amended return are not eligible to use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool 
d)  If notified that you are not eligible to use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool, you must complete the FAFSA by manually entering your income/tax information or estimates in the online application.  If a tax transcript or other documentation is required later, it will be listed on Banner Web 
e)  Every effort should be made NOT to adjust the IRS information once the data has been populated within the FAFSA 
f)  Even if the actual tax figures are manually used on the FAFSA, we would still recommend using the IRS Data Retrieval Tool to verify the information is correct

**** If you are applying for financial aid after June 15, 2013 - send all required documents (except the FAFSA) to our office. Do not submit to the IDOC service per the application instructions.

 You may also wish to review our frequently asked questions about the IDOC requirement and process.

Download the 2013-14 Continuing Student Application and Instructions.