The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) told the National Council of State Housing Agencies (NCSHA) that the ten issues for which the NCSHA requested specific guidance are all relevant to the current COVID-19 situation and under active consideration by IRS while they await guidance from Treasury about how to proceed.
IRS also agrees with the suggestion that they should promulgate COVID-19 specific guidance, as opposed to relying on existing disaster relief guidance provided by IRS Revenue Procedure 2014-49 and 2014-50. While these revenue procedures provide the ability to extend the statutory deadlines for the ten percent test and placed in service dates, and to waive certain physical inspection requirements of IRS compliance monitoring regulations, they do not address several other issues outlined in the NCSHA letter.
IRS agreed to applying the relevant provisions of IRS Revenue Procedures 2014-49 and 2014-50 on an immediate basis, while they promulgate additional COVID-19 guidance. The 27 jurisdictions that have received major disaster declaration for the COVID-19 pandemic can move forward with the relief outlined in the revenue procedures. IRS did not indicate that states needed to wait for FEMA to issue individual or public assistance amounts in conjunction with the major disaster declarations but cautioned that states need to be aware of the specific counties to which the disaster declaration applies if it is not statewide. The 27 jurisdictions represent 74 percent of the total U.S. population, and additional jurisdictions will likely declare major disasters.
