HUD estimates that the total income and rent errors attributable to tenant underreporting of income was $364 million in FY 2008, a decline of 63 percent from the FY 2000 baseline of $978 million. The Enterprise Income Verification (EIV) System (formally UIV) has already proven to be instrumental in reducing income and rent determination errors and improper payments due to unreported and underreported family household income.

UIV is the verification of income, before or during a family reexamination, through an independent source that systematically and uniformly maintains income information in computerized form for a large number of individuals.  PHAs should put forth a conscious effort to ensure that they use all available resources, including UIV techniques to obtain verification of tenant-reported (unreported or underreported) income.

Effective January 31, 2010, HUD  required PHAs to use HUD's centralized EIV to validate tenant reported income and inform tenants of the PHA's capability and intent to compare tenant-reported information with UIV data.  Please see the Final Rule, issued Guidance. PHAs should contact the EIV Coordinator at their local HUD field office for further information on obtaining access to the EIV system.

EIV System

A HUD provided Internet-based tool that allows PHAs to view employment information, wages, unemployment compensation and social security benefit information at any point in time. The system also compares PHA verified/tenant reported wages, unemployment compensation and social security benefit information reported on HUD form 50058 with the UIV-reported amounts for the same income sources to identify families that may have substantially under reported their household income.