The DRT is a free service which allowed student loan applicants and their parents to transfer tax data from a taxpayer's federal tax return directly to a Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form, eliminating the need for extra forms and paper. While the exact numbers of affected taxpayers have not yet been determined, Koskinen told the Committee that it could be as many as 100,000. In March, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Federal Student Aid (FSA) announced that the DRT on fafsa.gov and StudentLoans.gov would be unavailable until extra security protections can be added. The IRS has marked all of the accounts of those taxpayers who did not complete their FAFSA application using the tool. To be safe, the IRS will notify all 100,000 potentially affected taxpayers - even if the data suggests that attempts to access the account were legitimately from the taxpayers.

Source: Forbes April 07, 2017 16:30 UTC