There is incentive to show a lower income because then the modification waterfall can be applied to lower you payment to a 31% of that lower income. However you to be careful. You may need to include other household income not directly paid to a borrower of the loan in order to meet the minimum amount necessary to pass the Net Present Value (NPV) test. I will discuss the net present value test in more detail however one unfortunate problem with that test is that different lenders have discretion in how this test is applied. So you need to make sure that you don’t show a gross household your income so low that a corresponding HAMP eligible payment would cause the NPV test to fail. . . . → Read More: How to find the right HAMP monthly mortgage payment ratio