[Oasfaa] Newly Married Student Question

[kevin miller]

This may come up often for some of you larger schools, but we have come
across a student of ours who was recently married, and waited to file
his FAFSA until after his marriage.  Since he waited, he filed with he
and his new wife's 2001 separate tax information (instead of his
parent's), and of course he got selected for verification.  The problem
we've run across is the student did not file taxes, but his wife did.
What is the best way to go about properly displaying the income
information on the FAFSA?

An obvious option would be to only list her AGI, tax paid, and
exemptions on those specific FAFSA lines since those are the only
figures documented by tax forms, and then only list the student's income
on the "Student's Income Earned From Work" line.  I wasn't sure if that
would then give an "inaccurate" picture of the couple's income for the
year, though I feel this may be the best/most justifiable option.  Any
thoughts?  Thanks in advance...

kevin miller
Oklahoma Wesleyan University