The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) recently resumed its income verification program, Income Verification Express Service, or IVES, which was suspended three weeks ago as a result of the partial government shutdown.
The service is used by mortgage lenders to verify the income of self-employed borrowers. As such, many lenders had to find alternative methods for verifying borrower income or in some cases had to suspend the underwriting of mortgages for self-employed borrowers altogether.
“While the IRS remains closed during the partial government shutdown, the agency recognizes the immediate hardship incurred if information is not available through the Income Verification Express Service (IVES) program …,” the IRS says in a statement. “Following an extensive review, the IRS began processing requests on Jan. 7 for transcript information made through the Income Verification Express Service (IVES) program.”
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reportedly played a key role in getting the service reinstated.
“Since the shutdown began, MBA successfully advocated for FEMA to rescind their prior decision and allow insurers to issue and renew NFIP policies,” Pete Mills, senior vice president, residential policy and member services at MBA, tells Bankrate in a recent article. “We also led the way in urging the IRS to resume processing requests for tax transcript information made through IVES.”
Although the IVES service has been restored, the IRS says “it will take time to bring this service up to normal operating status.”
“The IRS advises IVES participants that it may initially take longer than the standard 72-hour turnaround time for the IRS to process these requests,” the IRS says in a post on its website. “This is due to employees being brought back to work to begin processing backlogged requests since the funding lapse began on Dec. 22.”