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TAX POLICY LEADERS CONTINUE PUSH FOR NEW MARKETS TAX CREDIT PERMANENCE

News provided by news direct2024-12-16

--News Direct--

Tax policy trends, community economic development, and the new administration were the focus at the New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) Coalition’s annual NMTC Conference, held last week. The event featured Senator Mark Warner (D-VA), Representative Claudia Tenney (R-NY) and CDFI Fund Director Pravina Raghavan as keynote speakers. Conference participants noted the need to pass legislation making the NMTC permanent.

Senior taxwriters, Senator Steve Daines (R-MT) and Representative Richard Neal (D-MA), both addressed attendees at a Capitol Hill Reception, reiterating their longstanding support for a permanent extension of the NMTC.

Conference panels focused on the community development financing landscape, the 2025 legislative outlook for the NMTC, legal and regulatory issues, climate funding and tax incentives, as well as several NMTC deal profiles.

Senator Warner gave the opening keynote, promising attendees his continued commitment to helping make the NMTC permanent. "It's time to make the NMTC permanent. Permanent! We are going to bring it home,” said the Senator. “I hope you’ll count on me as a long-term supporter.”

In December 2020, Congress enacted a 5-year, $25 billion NMTC extension through 2025, the largest in the program’s history. The NMTC program, however, is presently on track to expire in 2025.

During this Congress, both the Senate and House introduced bills (S. 234 and H.R. 2539) with bipartisan support to make the NMTC extension permanent. Establishing permanence will provide certainty in delivering resources to low-income and marginalized communities, creating jobs, increasing economic opportunity, and improving lives at a time when underserved communities face significant challenges.

Representative Tenney, lead sponsor of House legislation to extend the NMTC and make it permanent, committed to reintroducing the bill next year with her colleague, Representative Terri Sewell (D-AL). “We are not going to quit, we’re going to keep on fighting,” she said. “The NMTC is helping get people back to work. It’s helping small businesses, which is critical. More than 1.2 million jobs have already been created and we can create even more if we can make the NMTC permanent.”

The New Markets Tax Credit Coalition also released its fifth case study report since its inception in 2000, The New Markets Tax Credit: At Work in Communities Across America. The report is a collection of NMTC case studies from all fifty states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia.

Throughout its 20-year history, the NMTC has delivered more than $135 billion to rural and urban communities outside the economic mainstream, which has led to financing more than 8,500 businesses and projects and over 1.2 million jobs.

“With more than two decades of bipartisan successes under our belt, we’re continuing our push to increase funds and to make the NMTC permanent,” said Bob Rapoza, NMTC Coalition spokesperson. “At a time when the economic frailty of our underserved communities has never been more apparent, we see a tremendous opportunity for our coalition to help create jobs, spread opportunity, and put America back on a solid financial footing, and we implore Congress to make it happen.”

About New Markets Tax Credit Program -- The New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) was enacted in 2000 to stimulate private investment and economic growth in low-income urban neighborhoods and rural communities that lack access to the patient capital needed to support and grow businesses, create jobs, and sustain healthy local economies. Since its inception, the NMTC has generated more than 1.2 million jobs. Today, due to the NMTC, over $135 billion is hard at work in underserved communities in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, the Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands, and Puerto Rico. For more information, visit www.NMTCCoalition.org.