Now that the new year is here, many families will begin to think about filing the FAFSA for the upcoming year.  Due to very late congressional changes to the tax code, the IRS has had to delay their ability to accept 2012 tax returns by about a week.  This will directly impact the availability of the IRS Data Retrieval Tool which makes filing the FAFSA easier and more accurate.  We encourage families to delay filing the FAFSA until three weeks after their tax returns have been filed (unless filing an extension).  The Data Retrieval Tool should be available to most taxpayers at that time.  Dickinson’s deadline for filing the FAFSA is May 1.  Be sure to meet any earlier state deadlines, however.