You hit the nail on the head! You wrote:
“Any chance you did a retirement rollover in 2016?”
I have been in touch with FAFSA support, and this is indeed the issue. It is actually a painful issue, as I’ll describe.
I did have a rollover from my former employer’s 401(k) to a rollover IRA. On my 1040, it was correctly reported on line 16a, and since it was a rollover, line 16b showed a value of 0.
I seem to have run afoul of a quirk of the FAFSA/DRT. When you run DRT, it populates FAFSA line 94f (Parents’ Untaxed Portions of Pensions) with the value from 1040 line 16a. Not 16b.
Then … and this is key … you are apparently prompted with a checkbox on FAFSA below line 94f to indicate if this was a rollover. Clearly, my daughter and I missed that.
But worst of all - you CANNOT correct this by going through a Make Corrections flow on the FAFSA website!! Once submitted, that rollover checkbox never reappears.
So the next step for us is to wait until the school shows they have received the FAFSA, and then visit the OFA and request them to correct it. This probably means letters, supporting docs, etc.
All of this could have been avoided by ticking a checkbox. Ironic, huh!
So my advice - double and triple check every line on your FAFSA before submitting. Not everything can be corrected on the website.
Live and learn.