<p>Teenagers… ARGGGH! My 18 y/o senior did not feel it was necessary to keep any of his paycheck stubs. He had 3 different part-time jobs during 2012. I hate to wait for the W-2’s since they don’t have to be sent until 1/31/13. If we complete the FAFSA now and end up being way off for his income, will that raise red flags? I don’t really consider his income to be all that significant since it should be under $10,000 for the year. Our intention is to check the “will file” option regarding taxes and update the submission later.</p>
<p>If his income is below $6k then it really won’t make a difference.</p>
<p>How “off” can you possibly be? It sounds like you’d only be off maybe by a couple thousand. </p>
<p>Either way, you can file now and correct later.</p>
<p>Thanks for your input. That is true that considering the total dollars it should only vary a few thousand. Looking at percentage, though, he seriously doesn’t know whether his gross was $9000 or $5000 or somewhere in between, which means we could be off nearly 50% for his section. My concern was that would look bad, like we were trying to hide something. Maybe it’s preferable to guess on the high side since the aid package probably won’t be firmed up until we are able to use IRS Data Retrieval tool anyway.</p>
<p>He might be able to contact the employers - they should be able to provide the information. Some may even be available online.</p>
<p>Does he deposit his paychecks into a bank acct? If so, then maybe you can add up the deposits, then estimate what the deductions were, to get a better estimate. You’d still be a off a little bit, but probably not off by more than a thousand.</p>
<p>Don’t make yourself crazy about it . . . estimate as best you can and correct it later. Nobody’s going to think you were trying to hide anything. :)</p>