Providing Income for CCs

[Anonymous]

I have been going through updating my income for my creditors that I have CCs with, and am reading where it says something along the lines of "If you are 21 or older, you can include others income in which you have reasonable access to for paying your bills."

Anywho. I am slightly concerned about that in the event that they did ask for income verification, I feel like I'd be in a pickle. Here is my situation/scenario. My SO and I have lived together for a little over 2 years, so I was going to include her income into my income on my cc's as all of our accounts are joint, and thus both of our incomes are shared and used for the same bills. However, she recently got a new job that pays substancially more than what she was paid last year, so we can't provide a W-2/tax return to prove that portion of the income. I can assure you that I am not lying, I am just concerned how I would go about sending them documentation on that if they were to ask since the income jumped up so much with this new job that she started around March of 2017.

Would it be in my best interest to leave her income off of those until she receives her tax return next year? Or can we simply provide paystubs and I am worrying too much about it?

Also, in my own scenario. We (at my job) get annual raises, not including possible raises that would come with a promotion. In regards to reporting my own individual income, should I use my income as it is/would be with the raise, or as it was/would show on my tax return from the previous year?

Sorry if that is a loaded post with a lot of questions and some of which that may be talking in a circle... I am just trying to make sure I am covered in the event that they did ask for PoI. They haven't, and as I said earlier, I am being 100% truthful in my statement of the income (and I don't mind showing them if asked), I just don't want it to bite me if we don't have a tax return showing her updated income as she obviously hasn't been on that job that long.

[bizarrocreditworld]

Your SO's new job may have given a "notice of pay rate" letter that indicates what the salary is. In New York, such a letter is required to be given to an employee when that person is hired. I recently received a promotion that made me a permanent FTE of my company, so I was given the letter that spelled it out.

Alternatively, assuming the pay stubs are consistent, you should be able to use those.

[Anonymous]

I mean, she is "salaried" but at an hourly rate. She is with a credit union so her checks come with 173.33 hours at the same hourly rate on every check, plus an almost guaranteed 4.5-9 hours of overtime each check.

However, when using her income and mine as well, I just list the base pay without bonuses/overtime. The stubs are very consistent, I was just worried if CC issuers are or may possibly be stubborn/stern with using previous year tax returns for income verification at all times.

[rmduhon]

My understanding is that most CCC will give you a few options if they request POI. Generally, it will be either check stubs or W-2's.

[bizarrocreditworld]

Sorry, but this is a YMMV situation. The creditors I have encountered are not that stubborn, but of course, everybody has a different set of rules.

[Aduke1122]

Hey there I just wanted to throw in my 2 cents here , I'm a stay at home Mom so I have no income of my own to report but since my fiancé and I have all joint accounts I was told by my lenders as long as I could show that I have reasonable access to the funds then it can be counted as household income , Navy fed so far has been the only one to even question it at all but even then when I explained and offered to send in bank statements they said it was not necessary.

[pipeguy]

IME most credit card lenders do NOT ask for POI, that said I use our combined income (DW and mine) which is somewhat understated since about 20% of my yearly income is in "bonues" twice a year (moderate one in the summer, lager one in Nov-Dec). I can provide W-2 to show the bonus history, or pay stubs if necessary, but I've never been asked to by a CC application.  

[Anonymous]

I'm not as worried about new apps as I am about existing cards, as I don't want to worry about it being nixed/closed because of this, especially a card I regularly use. I'll probably just go back to using my own income for a while for peace of mind

[K-in-Boston]

It is absolutely OK to use the actual amount that you are currently expecting to receive on an annual basis, and if you are 21 or older to use a spouse or partner's income in addition to that.  Few lenders will ever ask for POI, and even fewer will ask for tax transcripts.  If there are any major discrepencies, most will be fine to hear your explanation of "I receive approximately $3,500 each quarter in bonus or commission."  I receive fairly substantial bonuses later in the year, and none of my lenders batted an eye when it was obvious that the last two pay stubs times the number of pay periods in the year weren't quite going to match up.  

I know you've put in a lot of work to fill your wallet, but I think you're stressing over something that in the end isn't a big deal.  I wouldn't deprive myself of credit opportunities if I knew that I was being honest with the lender.  Plenty of old threads around where people have had Financial Reviews (real ones, not tax transcript requests) and Amex themselves said they weren't looking for exact numbers, just somewhere in the ballpark to make sure that someone reporting $200k in income didn't actually gross $50k.

FWIW, I have only been asked to provide POI in six cases that I can remember.  One was an auto loan with HSBC about 15 years ago, the 2nd when I was approved for my first mortgage (the 1st and 2nd refinances to lower the rates would be the 3rd and 4th times), the 5th time was last year when we refinanced an auto loan with PenFed and the last time was with NFCU a few months ago when I apped for the Flagship VISA.  So in my entire life NFCU is the only one to ask me for POI for a credit card, and their exact wording was that lending had only requested it due to "unusually high reported income."  I'm going to say I probably have 50/50 odds on Amex asking me for tax transcripts (or the dreaded Financial Review as some like to misname it) either next month when I go for a 3X CLI on SPG or next year when I make my first attempt for a 6-figure revolver.

[medicgrrl]

I would continue to use her income. There's no disclosure that you sign specifying that they'll only accept the prior year's W-2 income. You're not committing fraud. It can easily be verified. Lender's are used to people getting new jobs etc. Don't stress over this.