Hello Heather et al !

Thanks for the time you’ve invested in this site- it has helped me tremendously as I navigate through the student loan jungle!

I just submitted my Direct Loan Consolidation Application a week ago and requested an IBR payment plan, using my 2013 tax record. In 2013, I filed jointly with my husband so our combined AGI was 70,000. Since we’ve entered tax time now, can I cancel the application, file my 2014 taxes as Married (Filing Separately), and use my own much lower AGI of about 30,000 for a much lower monthly payment ? Will the Direct Loan Consolidation Application pull the 2014 AGI after it’s been approved by the IRS?

It seems that the benefits of filing jointly will not outweigh the benefit of having a much lower student loan payment.

Thanks for your time !

Sorry I missed this post initially!  Borrowers can ask that their IBR payments be recalculated based on new income information at studentloans.gov and can import tax information using the IRS data retrieval tool.