Handy “how to” tip: Get your tax transcripts quickly and easily

As of January 10^th, new lending regulations make it mandatory that borrowers provide certain documents. Among those are proving current income and assets. For a salaried employee, a few pay stubs will work. A self-employed person or someone who doesn’t have a stable income because of varying work hours can use tax returns to show annual income for the purposes of getting a mortgage. (In the current year, a Profit and Loss Statement will work.)

When the government shut down a couple of months ago, it threatened to create havoc in mortgage lending. The fear was that lenders would be unable to get transcripts of tax records for borrowers. Tax transcripts were handled by mail; they took five to ten business days. (Of course, during the shutdown the personnel who handled this correspondence were considered not essential.)

I wonder if that spurred the creation of this very handy website, where you can get tax transcripts at the click of a few keys. The transcript portal is up and running. It is such a good idea.

Thank you to Stephen Fishman (no relation, he spells it wrong!) for alerting me to this new website.