FAFSA Help: Where do I find income tax on a 1040 tax transcript?

Thanks for this info. I'm also doing my FAFSA and my transcript has a section called "Tax Assessed" instead of "Tax Per Return." Is that the same thing? And for Schedule 2, I don't see anything specifically labeled for that. Would it be under the "Adjustments" section?

Tax" Assessed is typically the same "as Tax Per" Return on most transcripts, so you can use that figure for line 22. For Schedule 2 line 2, it'wouldn t be "under" Adjustments - it would appear as specific tax items like self-employment tax. If you'don t see any entries that seem to match Schedule 2 line 2,'it s possible you'didn t have any additional taxes, in which case that value would be zero. In that case, your income tax for FAFSA would simply be "the Tax" Assessedamount.

Does it work with older tax transcripts too? I need to use my 2023 transcript for my FAFSA but worried the format might be different from current ones.

I'm a bit skeptical about uploading my tax documents to some random website. How does it handle the privacy/security aspect? I'm always nervous about tax info getting compromised.

Yes, it absolutely works with older transcripts! I actually used it with my 2023 transcript for this year's FAFSA application. The tool is designed to handle different transcript formats across different tax years. Regarding privacy concerns, I was hesitant at first too. They use bank-level encryption for all uploaded documents and don't store your tax documents after analysis. Plus, you can delete everything immediately after you get the information you need. I researched it pretty thoroughly before using it because I had the same concerns.

How exactly does this work? Do you still have to call the IRS yourself or does the service somehow call for you? I'm confused about the process.

Yeah right. I've tried EVERYTHING to get through to the IRS and nothing works. They're notorious for never answering phones. I find it hard to believe some service could magically get you through when millions of people can't get through every tax season.

The way it works is you enter your phone number on their website, and their system navigates the IRS phone tree for you. Once they have an agent on the line, they connect the call to your phone. So you don't have to sit through all the hold music and automated prompts - you just get a call when there's an actual human ready to talk. As for the skepticism, I totally get it. I was desperate after trying for 3 days to get through myself. Their system basically keeps calling and navigating the phone tree until it gets through. I'm not sure how exactly they do it, but it saved me hours of frustration. The IRS agent was super helpful once I finally got to speak with someone.

I tried using the IRS Data Retrieval Tool but got an error message saying it couldn't access my information. That's why I'm trying to manually enter everything from the transcript. Is there any way to troubleshoot the retrieval tool, or am I stuck doing it manually at this point?

That's frustrating, but it happens sometimes. The IRS DRT can fail if your tax filing status is Married Filing Separately, if you filed an amended return, or if your address on FAFSA doesn't exactly match your tax return address. It can also have issues if you've recently filed or if the IRS systems are experiencing high traffic. At this point, you'll likely need to enter the information manually using your transcript. Just make sure to have someone double-check your entries if possible, as errors can cause delays in processing your financial aid.

I think it's because the FAFSA form is designed by the Department of Education, while tax transcripts are an IRS thing. The two departments probably don't coordinate their documentation. It's super annoying, but I've found that calling your school's financial aid office can sometimes help - they deal with this confusion all the time.