[Oasfaa] Newly Married Student Question

[Mc Conahay, Pamela K]

Kevin,

If you leave her AGI in the AGI field, and only put his earnings in the
"student's earnings from work" field, you are going to get a skewed EFC that
doesn't reflect both incomes.  Putting the student's income into the
"student's earnings from work" field will get you an accurate FICA allowance
and employment expense allowance BUT the EFC formula won't include those
earnings in the "total income" figure that's used to compute the EFC.  

Here's my suggestion:  record his income in the "student's earnings from
work" field (again, to get the correct FICA and employment allowance
figures) and also record it is Untaxed Income.   Or, you could add it to her
AGI in the AGI field instead of putting it in the Untaxed Income field.
Either one of these will insure that the income used to compute the EFC will
reflect their true total income.   

Pam McConahay
Asst. Director, Compliance & Support Services
University of Oklahoma Financial Aid Services
731 Elm, Rm 125 Norman OK 73019-2111
(405) 325-4617  Fax (405) 325-7608
pmcconahay at ou.edu 


-----Original Message-----
From: kevin miller [mailto:kmmiller at okwu.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, August 07, 2002 9:02 AM
To: OASFAA Listserv
Subject: [Oasfaa] Newly Married Student Question


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

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