Bipartisan House Group Urges IRS to Issue VAWA Guidance for LIHTC Sites

Lawmakers blame the agency for lack of direction.

A bipartisan group of 24 members of Congress recently sent U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel a letter urging the Treasury and IRS to issue guidance providing direction to state agencies and other LIHTC program participants, such as owners and managers, on the application of protections guaranteed by the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) for residents of, and applicants for, affordable housing financed with LIHTCs.

The lack of safe and affordable housing is one of the primary barriers survivors of domestic violence face when they choose to leave an abusive partner, and domestic violence is one of the leading causes of homelessness for women and children, according to the National Network to End Domestic Violence. The House group’s letter points out that the law sees the LIHTC program as a covered program. And VAWA provides protections to residents of and applicants for affordable rental housing financed by “covered programs” if they are survivors of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, or stalking.

While most covered programs are HUD programs, others are administered by other federal agencies, including the departments of Agriculture, Justice, and Veterans Affairs. The LIHTC, while it is a tax incentive and not technically “federal financing,” has been included in the law as a VAWA-covered program since the legislation was reauthorized in 2013.

Congress added the Housing Credit to the list of VAWA-covered programs over a decade ago, yet, unlike HUD and several other federal departments that have published regulatory guidance and/or model forms to support their grantees in ensuring they appropriately comply with the protections afforded under VAWA, the IRS and Treasury have not issued guidance related to VAWA’s application to the LIHTC program.

The lawmakers feel that the lack of direction from the Treasury and IRS leaves unanswered questions about how to implement VAWA protections and report violations occurring in LIHTC sites. And while individual state LIHTC allocating agencies, in the absence of federal direction, have instituted their own policies and procedures related to this VAWA compliance, the letter says this is not a replacement for uniform guidance from the federal entities with oversight jurisdiction for the LIHTC program.