It wasn’t all that long ago that a busboy could walk into a mortgage lender, say he made $100,000 per year and get a home loan based on that number.

The loan programs that were available had all different kinds of names, but they all pretty much did the same thing — allow people to get qualified for a mortgage without proof that they could qualify.

Fast forward to today’s mortgage market. Guidelines are tighter than they have been in years, loans are tougher to get and people are generally less apt to go out on a limb when financing their home.

And stated income loans are virtually non existent.

Who is hurt by the fact that stated income loan options do not exist?

Generally speaking, I would say that the small business person is hurt by not having stated income loans available. And what is even worse – now that virtually every lender requires that you allow them to verify your tax returns with the IRS, I suspect that there isn’t a stated income loan program anywhere on the immediate time horizon.

So if you are a small business owner and you have an accountant who helps make sure that you are minimizing your tax liability to the IRS, if you didn’t already know that this was impacting your ability to get a home loan — now you know.

One of the unexpected victims of the elimination of the stated income loan program appears who they were designed for in the first place:

The small business owner.