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On Nov. 18, 2015, HUD published a joint notice under Notice PIH 2015-21: Amendment to the Definition of Tuition, which formally amends the definition of tuition found in Eligibility of Students for Assisted Housing Under Section 8 of the U.S. Housing Act of 1937; Supplementary Guidance [71 FR 18146, appendix A]. The new definition will be used in both Multifamily Housing and Public and Indian Housing (PIH) programs. The notice is effective immediately.
Some of your households may have unreimbursed medical expenses that include travel expenses to and from treatment. And if any of these households are classified as elderly or disabled, HUD permits a medical expense deduction to be used to calculate their adjusted annual income. So be sure these households are aware that you can include mileage to and from medical appointments and to and from regular medical treatments as part of the medical expense deduction.
When certifying and recertifying households, you may come across certain items that look like income, but that HUD doesn’t consider income. It’s important to recognize these items and not mistakenly count them in a household member’s annual income. Otherwise, you’ll improperly inflate the household’s annual income, which could cause you to find an eligible household ineligible.
While certifying and recertifying households, you may learn that a household member owns rental property that generates income. This doesn’t necessarily mean the household doesn’t qualify for an assisted unit. But you do need to know how to treat the property when calculating the household’s income and assets. Here’s what you must do when certifying and recertifying an assisted household with rental income.
To determine whether a household is eligible to live at your assisted site and how much assistance it should get, you must count income that the household “expects to receive” during its 12-month certification year [HUD Handbook 4350.3, par. 5-5(A)]. This includes amounts household members earn at their jobs. But sometimes you can’t be certain how much employment income household members will actually get during the coming 12 months.
HUD-assisted households are required to report all income from all sources to the owner or manager during certification or recertification. One component of annual income is any income the household’s assets generate. And sometimes, households may dispose of assets for less than fair market value (FMV). These can include cash gifts or property. As an owner or manager, you must get correct information from residents about assets disposed of for less than FMV.
When you calculate a household's annual income, you may encounter a household member who has money in a pension fund or retirement account. It's important to know how to treat this money. But HUD rules on what to do can get confusing.
How you treat money from pension funds differs from how you treat money from retirement accounts, such as 401(k)s and individual retirement accounts (IRAs). We'll help you sort out the rules on both so you can properly calculate household income and assets.
Most managers find it easy to calculate the allowance for child-care expenses when the care allows the only adult member of the household to work. The child-care expenses are simply deducted from household income up to the amount of the member's earned income. But calculating the allowance isn't always so straightforward. For example, child care may allow the household member to go to school as well.
To help you in this and other special circumstances, here are some dos and don'ts to keep in mind when calculating households' child-care allowances.
When you are calculating household income, a “freelancer” presents special challenges. Freelancers are self-employed, and their income often can be sporadic. Paragraph 5-5 of the HUD Occupancy Handbook 4350.3 considers such income to be “irregular” and provides some examples, such as a roofer who works seasonally and a typist who gets jobs through a temp agency.
The Handbook doesn't state specifically how to estimate a freelancer's anticipated income, but gives suggested approaches:
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