The process for parents of college-bound students to fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid known as the FAFSA, just became a lot more complicated after the IRS suspended a certain tool.
The FAFSA which many schools use to determine financial aid awards, uses an IRS data retrieval tool called DRT, which automatically transfers a family’s tax information to the online application.
During the middle of last week, the IRS suspended the use of this tool for the online FAFSA.
“The IRS decided to temporarily suspend the data retrieval tool as a precautionary step following concerns that information from the tool could potentially be misused by identity thieves,” the IRS said in a statement to U.S. News.
But some government officials concede there was no formal announcement to the suspension of this tool.
The FAFSA application is still available online. But families will have to fill out the information on the application from their 2015 tax returns manually. Taxpayers who don’t have a copy of their return will have to retrieve a copy from their tax preparer or by requesting a tax transcript.
“The IRS anticipates the online data tool will be unavailable for severals week,” the IRS said in an email.
Fred Amrein, founder of Pennsylvania-based EFC Plus and author of “Financial Aid and Beyond: Secrets to College Affordability” said in his newsletter that there’s isn’t a rush to fix the tool because tax verifications on the form don’t happen until the “May/June timeframe.”
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Do 4 Things If Your FAFSA Is Selected for Verification
IRS Suspends Financial Aid Tool originally appeared on usnews.com
