FAFSA and 2013 Income Tax form question!

[peinture]

Hi all -

I am an undergrad graduating this may applying to a grad program (Columbia MFA) and their FAFSA deadline is Feb. 15th. I am filling FAFSA as an dependent for the first time and they are asking for my 2013 IRS income tax forms and I have no idea what to do. Up until last summer I only ever did work-study. Last summer I worked at a camp and made 2,000dollars and that's it in terms of my income. I am really freaking out since I need to make the Feb. deadline and have no idea how/where I can file for tax returns... my employer from the summer has not given me information yet/is this feasible/any advice would be tremendously appreciated. I apologise for how silly this might sound!! 

[Maleficent999]

Turbotax.com. I work in accounting and I still use it. It's free to use but costs to file electronically. Personally I think it's worth it for the convenience. Your former employer has until the 31st to get you a w-2. If you've moved you should contact them to make sure they have the right address. You'll also need a 1098-T form from your school showing fees paid. This is usually sent automatically or can be obtained online. You can write off books/supplies for school and if you have a car, the taxable part of your registration. After you input all that into turbotax and submit, it'll give you all the numbers you need for the fafsa such as net or gross income for 2013.

Edited January 16, 2014 by Maleficent999

[faithfullywaiting]

I am in the same boat. But know that you can submit your FAFSA by just saying that you "will file" and just estimate the numbers for now and submit it. Then go back once you have all your tax information later and update it on your fafsa.

[TakeruK]

It seems like TurboTax is one of the different software avaialble that will let you file for free if your income is low (for federal taxes but not state ones). Other software listed here: http://taxes.about.com/od/preparingyourtaxes/tp/freefile.htm

Edited January 22, 2014 by TakeruK

[m-ttl]

Why file independent? Have your parents claim you for last year on their taxes and then say on the FAFSA you didn't file. If you're claimed as a dependent for tax purposes you only have to file if you make over 5k last I checked.

[OCD or Perfection?]

Why file independent? Have your parents claim you for last year on their taxes and then say on the FAFSA you didn't file. If you're claimed as a dependent for tax purposes you only have to file if you make over 5k last I checked.

This is not good advice. If your parents file you as dependent, their income will be reported as part of the amount available for you to pay for college. Only do this if your parents are willing/able to pay for your college.

 

As noted earlier, FAFSA allows you to use the "income estimator" tool. You can file your FAFSA based on that and go fill it in later.

 

W2

If your employer has not given you your W2 (statement of income and taxes you paid to uncle Sam) yet (this is not surprising, they have until Jan 31 to do so), you can use your last paystub and it will have all the information reported on the W2 anyway (federal taxes paid, medicaid, SS and your total earnings). You can use that to file your taxes.

 

Filing your taxes

TurboTax is excellent and free. After you're done filing your taxes, they even give you a FAFSA worksheet for all the information you need to put in the FAFSA on a separate page (I think that might be true only for the paid version).

 

Additional help (lol)

Since you are 22 and I was 22 and mortified of IRS at that age, I'm happy to use my extensive (lol) experience in tax filing/FAFSA to help you out personally and for free (trying to build up all the good karma I can) so PM me and I think it should be fairly easy to walk you through most of the steps of the FAFSA over a short phone call.

 

Best of luck.

 

P.S. I dropped out of college in my undergrad because I never had the money to pay for it. I never filed the FAFSA because I was scared of documentation-some people have that phobia. It seemed insurmountable at the time. This cost me considerably (as dropping out of college does anyone). I was so scared in fact that I was happier working seven nights a week for $7/hour while going to college than filling out a few simple forms that would've got me thousands of dollars in completely free money..

 

Since then, I have filled out my FAFSA twice, got a completely free ride through an associates degree and undergrad, both of which I was able to finish with a 4.0 GPA and still have money left over. Now I have zero undergrad debt (I still worked throughout, only better paying jobs) and am eligible for $20,500 in aid just from the government.

 

The FAFSA is scary-but it is so goddamn worth it!