MISMO Issues Draft Consent Language to Comply with New Tax Law

MISMO®, the mortgage industry standards organization, issued draft language to help lenders and other parties comply with a new requirement included in the recently passed Taxpayer First Act.

The Taxpayer Consent Language will permit lenders to share the tax information received from the Internal Revenue Service with other parties involved in the mortgage transaction.

MISMO is releasing the draft consent language now to give the industry an opportunity to comment on the model language. This is in response to the July 1, 2019 passage of the Taxpayer First Act, which says the taxpayer must give permission for their tax information to be shared. The comment period will remain open until Oct 23, 2019. MISMO expects that the finalized version will be ready ahead of the law’s December 28 implementation date.

“We are pleased that the MISMO community came together to develop useful and clear consent language to ensure compliance with the new law,” said JPMorgan Chase Assistant General Counsel Suzanne Garwood. “Over the next 30 days, we encourage the industry to review the consent language and share any questions or concerns they may have.”

Last month, MISMO asked the industry to collaborate in the development of language that could be used to obtain consumer consent for the utilization of tax information by stakeholders throughout the mortgage process.

The requirement to obtain taxpayer consent to share their tax data is new and distinct from the existing IRS Request for Transcript of Tax Return (e.g. 4506T). The 4506T requires taxpayer consent for the IRS to provide the tax transcript to the lender or other requesting party.

The new Taxpayer Consent Language can be accessed here and will be available for public comment until October 23. Industry participants who have comments or questions about the Taxpayer Consent Language can contact MISMO at info@mismo.org.

The comment period is also intended to give workgroup participants who worked on the proposed taxpayer consent language at least 30 days’ notice prior to final release to review the language and disclose any applicable Patent Rights (as defined by MISMO’s 2018 Intellectual Property Rights Policy). Disclosures and comments should also be directed to info@mismo.org. At this time, MISMO also requests that organizations disclose in writing any patents and patent applications that might be infringed by an organization that uses or is compliant with the proposed taxpayer consent language.

The release and use of MISMO standards and other resources, including the proposed taxpayer consent language, are governed by the MISMO Intellectual Property Rights policy. Click here for more information on the policy.

For more information about MISMO, visit www.mismo.org.