Your Money: U.S. Tax Reform Further Complicates Federal Student Aid Form

Six new schedules are incorporated into the main 1040 tax form, while the 1040EZ and 1040A forms have been eliminated.

Tax data can be culled electronically to the FAFSA through the IRS’s Data Retrieval Tool if applicants sign up for that process.

The FAFSA system does not alert you if any schedules are skipped, said Charlie Javice, the founder and chief executive of Frank Financial Aid, a free app that helps students file the FAFSA.

You could be providing half the information, and nobody is telling you if it’s accurate or not,” said Javice.
 

Families tend to give up when the process gets too cumbersome,
Javice said.

What is the best way for families filing the FAFSA form?

Either use the IRS tool and try to verify that schools receive the pertinent information, or not use the tool and enter all their information manually, experts advised.

“The data retrieval tool has always had issues,” Kantrowitz said.