Section 427.10.5. Income.

       10.5(1) Proof of income eligibility is required. All income shall be verified for each household member based on the 3-month or 12-month period immediately preceding the application date or the most recent calendar year. Verification of income shall be made through documentary evidence in the possession of the applicant household. If documentary evidence is not available from the household, verification shall be obtained from the source of income.

       10.5(2) Household income refers to total annual cash receipts before taxes from all sources, with the exceptions noted below. Income includes money, wages and salaries before any deductions; net receipts from nonfarm self-employment (receipts from a person’s own unincorporated business, professional enterprise, or partnership after deductions for business expenses); net receipts from farm self-employment (receipts from a farm which one operates as an owner, renter, or sharecropper, after deductions for farm operating expenses); regular payments from social security, railroad retirement, unemployment compensation, strike benefits from union funds, workers’ compensation, veterans’ payments, public assistance (including Family Investment Program, Supplemental Security Income, emergency assistance money payments, nonfederally funded general assistance or general relief money payments), training stipends; alimony, child support, and military family allotments or other regular support from an absent family member or someone not living in the household; private pensions, government employee pensions (including military retirement pay), regular insurance or annuity payments; college or university scholarships, assistantships; dividends, interest, net rental income, net royalties, periodic receipts from estates or trusts, and net gambling or lottery winnings.

       10.5(3) For program eligibility purposes, income does not include the following: capital gains, any assets drawn down as withdrawals from a bank, the sale of property, a house, or a car; tax refunds, gifts, loans, lump-sum inheritances, one-time insurance payments, or compensation for injury. Also excluded are noncash benefits, such as employer-paid or union-paid portion of health insurance or other employee fringe benefits, food or housing received in lieu of wages, the value of food and fuel produced and consumed on farms, the imputed value of rent from owner-occupied nonfarm or farm housing, and such federal noncash benefit programs as Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, school lunches, housing assistance, and other income, the exclusion of which is required by law.

       10.5(4) Further income criteria and guidelines are contained in the Iowa state plan for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program and the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program Procedures Manual as described in 10.6(216A,PL97-35,PL98-558).