A family's annual income may be determined from a means-tested Federal public assistance determination made in the previous 12 months, obtained by third-party verification and used whole

s8.income.safe_harbor_means_tested_determination · v1.0.0

The owner may determine a family's annual income, including income earned from assets, before the application of any deductions, from an income determination made within the previous 12-month period under one of ten named means-tested forms of Federal public assistance: TANF, Medicaid, SNAP, the Earned Income Tax Credit, the Low-Income Housing Credit, WIC, Supplemental Security Income, other programs administered by the Secretary, other Federal means-tested assistance for which HUD has a memorandum of understanding, and other Federal means-tested determinations HUD announces by Federal Register notice. Where the owner elects to use the safe harbor it must obtain the other program's determination by third-party verification; the verification must state the family size, must cover the entire family so that the members it lists match the family's composition in the assisted unit apart from household members, and must state the amount of the family's annual income, which need not be broken down by member or by income type. An award letter from the relevant Federal program is an acceptable form. The determination is current if any of the income determination effective date, the program administrator's signature date, the family's signature date, the report effective date, or another report-specific date evidencing the determination date falls within the 12 months before the owner receives the documentation; meeting that test satisfies all verification date requirements for the safe harbor. Only the total income determination made by the other program's administrator may be used: income inclusions, exclusions and any other information in the award letter must not be considered, and safe harbor determinations must not be mixed with other income verifications for the same family. Because annual income already includes income earned from assets, an owner using the safe harbor neither inquires further about the family's net family assets nor about the income earned from them, except as to whether the family owns assets exceeding the 24 CFR 5.618 asset limitation. Where the owner does not accept safe harbor documentation, cannot obtain it, or the family disputes the other program's determination, the owner must calculate annual income under 24 CFR 5.609(c)(1) and (2). Attendant care and child care expense deductions must still be capped by the earnings of the family member enabled to work, so the owner must still obtain third-party verification of that employment income. Where the safe harbor was used to verify a family's income the owner need not pull the EIV Income Report at the annual reexamination, nor verify income in EIV within 120 days after admission.

Confidence

high

Effective from

2024-01-01

Compliance date

2027-01-01

Last reviewed

2026-08-28