Posted Date:August 2, 2013
| Author: | Lisa DiCarlo, Director, Student Experience Group, Federal Student Aid |
Subject: Correction to Values for New Tax Return Filing Status Fields in 2014-2015 EDE Technical Reference (July 2013 Draft)
We have identified an error in the valid values provided for two new fields in the July 2013 draft of the 2014-2015 EDE Technical Reference, which we posted on July 24, 2013 to the Information for Financial Aid Professionals (IFAP) Web site. We will correct these values in the next version of the 2014-2015 EDE Technical Reference we publish, currently scheduled for October 2013.
Background Information
For the 2014-2015 Award Year, we are adding two new FAFSA questions that collect the tax return filing status of the student and the parents of a dependent student. The student and parent responses to the questions will be returned in the 2014-2015 ISIR in the Student’s Tax Return Filing Status and Parents’ Tax Return Filing Status fields, respectively.
We will provide more information and guidance regarding these two new fields in the 2014-2015 Summary of Changes for the Application Processing System guide, which will be available on the IFAP Web site in early November 2013.
EDE Technical Reference Correction
In the EDE Record Layouts section of the July 2013 draft of the 2014-2015 EDE Technical Reference, we added the new Student’s Tax Return Filing Status and Parents’ Tax Return Filing Status fields to the ISIR Record Description/Data Dictionary and FAFSA Application Export record layouts. We also added it to the 2014-2015 ISIR Cross Reference section. In doing so, we listed incorrect numeric values for the field responses of “Qualifying widow(er)” and “Don’t know.” The draft July 2013 record layouts and cross reference list “6” as the numeric value for “Qualifying widow(er)” and “7” for “Don’t know.”
The correct values are “5” for “Qualifying widow(er)” and “6” for “Don’t know.”
We recommend you make note of these corrections in your copy of the July 2013 draft. As noted earlier, we will correct these values in the next version of the 2014-2015 EDE Technical Reference.
Contact Information
If you have any questions, contact CPS/SAIG Technical Support at 800/330-5947 (TDD/TTY 800/511-5806) or by e-mail at CPSSAIG@ed.gov.