Financial Aid Verification

The Student Financial Planning Department will post a notice to you on your MyKWU Student Portal Account, under the section titled “Financial Aid Document Tracking”.  It will provide detailed instructions of what to provide and how to provide it.  Read and follow these instructions carefully.  Check this section frequently.

Verification is best thought of as a quality assurance program of the Federal Government to attempt to assure that students’ Financial Aid awards are based on accurate calculations and accurate data.  So information on your FAFSA is compared to other documents to “verify” the FAFSA data is correct.

Your FAFSA being selected for Verification means that the Student Financial Planning Office will be unable to proceed with processing your application for financial assistance until you “complete verification.” In short, you will not receive financial aid award notification until you complete this step, meaning that you would then be responsible for the payment of your tuition and charges in full before you will be able to move in to Residence Halls or to commence athletic competition or to attend classes.

On a practical level, the good answer is “DO IT NOW!”  Delay serves no good purpose. Some financial aid programs are limited in funding, and available funding may be exhausted by the time you complete Verification. The Federal government permits you to complete verification as late as 120 days after you cease attending in the award year (usually, this means the end of the term), or a date in late September of the award year, whichever of those two comes earlier. Completing this later or missing the deadline, will result in a loss of federal is eligibility.

For example, if Verification is completed after the academic year, or if your enrollment is ended, we cannot process loans and limited funds may be exhausted. If you are having trouble completing verification, contact the Student Financial Planning Office in the K-Dub Hub for help at (785) 833-4315.

The IRS Data Retrieval tool is the main method the U.S. Department of Education permits for verification of your and/or your parents’ tax information. It is easy and fast. Here are the steps:

1. Log onto your FAFSA at studentaid.gov, using your FSA ID.
2. Under the section “You can also”, click on the hyperlinked text “Make FAFSA Corrections.”
3. In the upper screen of the FAFSA, select the blue tab titled “Financial Information.” Scroll down to the questions about income tax.
4. Make sure the question about completion of your tax return is toggled to “Already Completed.”
5. There should be a box titled “Link to the IRS.” Proceed to the IRS website. Enter your address exactly as listed on your tax return. For example, if you abbreviated “street” in your street address as “St.”, you would need to say that here as well.
6. Choose the box to the right that says “I want to transfer my tax information into the FAFSA.” Then choose the button to the left that says “Transfer now.”
7. At this point, make sure to save and submit your FAFSA.
8. Your new FAFSA will arrive at the Student Financial Planning Office in just a couple of days.

If you able to use the IRS Data Retrieval tool, this process generally works very well. However, the following conditions would delay or disqualify you from using IRS Data Retrieval:

1. You filed your tax returns electronically less than three weeks earlier, OR you filed your tax return on paper less than ten weeks earlier.
2. IRS Data Retrieval tool is available only if for the question “Have you completed your return?” you entered on your FAFSA: “Have Completed” (my tax return). If you entered “Will Not File” or “Will File” (my tax return),change the answer on your FAFSA to “Have Completed” so that FAFSA will offer the IRS Data Retrieval tool to you.
3. If your parents were recently married (or remarried) and/or filed separate tax returns. This would mean that the return cannot be imported by the FAFSA.
4. IRS Data Retrieval tool will only transfer original tax data. You will need to submit a copy of the 1040X amended form to the Student Financial Planning office.

1. 1. The first three digits of the Social Security Number are 666.
   2. You have filed an amended Income Tax Return since your original filing. IRS Data Retrieval cannot import amended returns.
   3. You filed a Puerto Rican or foreign tax return(s), or.
   4. You completed your FAFSA reporting “Married” as your marital status but filed your tax return as “Head of Household, or filed separate return(s).

How do I complete Verification if I do not meet the criterion to use IRS Data Retrieval or just otherwise cannot get it to work?

You can complete this part of verification by providing an IRS tax return transcript for each income tax return needed (e.g. married filing separately – copies of each filer’s IRS Tax Transcripts, etc.).  You can obtain your IRS tax transcripts by visiting the IRS website at www.irs.gov/individuals/get-transcript.

In some instances, the KWU Student Financial Planning office can accept a signed copy of your tax return.

Please sign and send to the KWU Student Financial Planning Office.