Coming to a resolution on some issues is not always easy.
And when it comes to resolving conflicting information on a FAFSA, financial aid professionals now have some more steps to take.
In a July 24 Update to June 17 Electronic Announcement, the Department of Education revised the instructions with additional steps for resolving conflicting information. The steps address those situations when a FAFSA applicant or contributor, who had FTI data reported on the ISIR also manually indicated they did not file a U.S. tax return in 2022.
According to the Department, “each of these steps—including collecting appropriate documentation—must be completed prior to submitting a correction to the FAFSA Processing System (FPS) for the system to allow the changes.”
In the guidance, the Department said a school must confirm the student’s or contributor’s tax information by requesting documentation from the student or applicable contributor. Appropriate documents to collect include either IRS tax transcripts or signed copies of the 2022 income tax return and applicable schedules. The guidance goes on to provide specific steps in making these types of corrections.
More information on the requirements around resolving conflicting information are outlined in Chapter 5 of the Application and Verification Guide in the Federal Student Aid Handbook.
Also in the July 24 update, the Department said it is aware that schools are experiencing issues when trying to make these corrections in the FAFSA Partner Portal and it is currently working on prioritizing a technical fix.
