Income Calculations

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Explosive growth in ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft are attracting more and more drivers. These drivers earn extra income with the benefit of working flexible hours. According to recent research by JPMorgan Chase Institute, from late 2013 to this spring, the number of households earning income from transportation-related apps has grown 20 times. And a separate study Uber released in late 2016 showed that while the number of drivers on the app had grown, aver...

According to recently issued RHIIP ListServ Posting #411, HUD has been advised that a number of owners/agents are encountering old or missing data when attempting to view EIV reports for some or all of their sites. If you’re encountering these issues, for compliance monitoring purposes, copies of the incorrect EIV reports must be retained and proper verification must be conducted. HUD is aware of the errors and is working to correct the issues in the system.

The Social Security Administration (SSA) has announced that the monthly Social Security and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) will increase 0.3 percent in 2017. The 0.3 percent cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) will begin with benefits payable to more than 60 million Social Security beneficiaries in January 2017. Increased payments to more than 8 million SSI beneficiaries will begin on Dec. 30, 2016.

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 ca...