Vickie Bell (00:04)
welcome to another Tuesday tip. I have Ebony here with me today. She's just all into techie stuff. And we have been getting a lot of calls from you guys as to how to count the income for gig drivers or ride share.

I'll say, I've got to go to the grocery store and Ebony will say, well, my groceries are being delivered. So tell us about some of those handy things that you use.

Ebony Hall (00:27)
Ha ha ha!

So I use, Shipt There's Instacart. whenever I travel for work, it's always Uber or Lyft. you know, ride sharing and food delivery. I love it, it makes life so convenient.

Vickie Bell (00:44)
That's what you tell me. And see, I'm kind of old fashioned, kind of stuck, and don't do a lot of that. a lot of you as managers are kind of like me. Our pool of managers and owners and agents is just so wide and so vast that some of us like those kind of things and some of us don't. For instance, the calls that we have been receiving is, how do I count?

Uber income and how do I count Lyft income? Well, property managers, we want you to listen up. It has been said that HUD hadn't told us how to count it. And at first they didn't, Ebony. They really didn't tell us how we were to count it. But now they have told us that we're supposed to count it as if it was an independent contractor.

Because so many of our managers were having so much trouble trying to get third-party verification from Uber or from Lyft or some of those other convenient services that you use. Yet, it was so easy for our residents to pick those up as jobs or part-time jobs.

Ebony Hall (01:48)
Mm-hmm.

Vickie Bell (01:49)
So.

Even though you have convenience on one end, it was presenting a problem for you guys, our managers on the other end. So we want you to count it as self-employment. Chapter 5 of the 43.3 Handbook, paragraph 5-6 tells you about income, and it tells you about counting the income for a business. So our residents, even though they don't

think that they're in business, they're actually in business. And because of that, we have to treat all of those things as if it was a business. So what we need for them to do is we need for them to verify their income. And they'll verify their income through the form which one of these services gives them at the end of the year.

Ebony Hall (02:35)
Okay.

Vickie Bell (02:36)
And also, I want you guys to keep in mind that we don't count the gross. We count the net. Because expenses are taken from it as if they were a business. So they can claim gas, tires, automobile services.

Anything that they spend to advertise or to get that business off the ground, they can write off. So you actually want to look at their net. You don't want to look at their growth.

as you can see, your residents can make quite a bit. Don't be upset with them because they want to work. Be upset with them because they don't want to provide the proof. And what you need is you need acceptable proof.

Ebony Hall (03:14)
Ha ha.

Vickie Bell (03:18)
You need the 1099, the Schedule C from their tax returns. And they have those, or they should have those. If they don't have those, they should at least have the form that one of the major companies sent them for taxes. Because believe me, those companies aren't going to pay their taxes for them. So no tax return. It's kind of like no income. You can get a notarized affidavit.

if they want to estimate their income you. can get an affidavit stating if they disagree with the amount of the income. OVA also provides what's called ⁓ 1099K, but you still need to figure out what else you need. You still need to get along with your resident, enough for them to bring you

the expenses to show the money that they make. Remember, only the business portion is used so they can count or discount it for the car expenses, but they should have that already broken down on their tax return. There's a tip I want to tell you about. If they start driving, you can use their first few months because they might not have gotten enough or obtained enough to get a 1099.

then you can use their first couple of months to average it. There's just so many ways that you could work with your residents, use finesse, kindness, empathy to talk with them and to get them to bring you the documents that you need. You also want to check with your state agency.

for any local requirements that they may have. Ride sharing is kind of easy. I don't do it because, like I said, I'm kind of old fashioned. If I have an Uber or a Lyft, I usually ride with Ebony or my daughter. She'll order me one. And just keep in mind, however, that HUD did not tell us in the past exactly how. But they are telling us now.

Ebony Hall (05:01)
This is true.

Vickie Bell (05:12)
that they want us to count this as income and we're to count it as any income an independent contractor would have. And don't forget to use the reference in the book to help you. Can you think of anything else we need to tell our audience, Ebony?

Ebony Hall (05:27)
I I think you've covered it all.

Vickie Bell (05:29)
Okay, for those of you who like it, good luck. For those of us who don't, okay. We'll talk to you next week with some other things and some other tips. Now, usually we do a session of questions that you have. So next Tuesday, we'll do questions that you have that have come in.

Thank you and we'll see you next

Ebony Hall (05:46)
Yes, you can send them to V.