Tax Credit Advisor Article Archives

Preservationists were jubilant when they learned that the Federal Historic Tax Credit (HTC) would be saved from the chopping block in the final version of the tax reform bill negotiated by Congress and signed into law by President Trump in December.

New Markets Tax Credits (NMTCs) can make a big difference in bolstering rural development and preventing manufacturers from fleeing to greener pastures.

Pension funds have long been the sleeping giants of housing. That’s because while they have a significant share in the sector, real estate is usually a fairly small part of their overall portfolios and so doesn’t loom very large on their radar screens.

Amidst the ongoing debate about who benefits most and who least from the passage of the tax reform act in December 2017, one provision embedded in the new law appears to offer significant benefits for investment designed to improve low-income and underserved communities.

Missouri has been a robust state for tax credit construction, and the state-level Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) has been its largest such tax credit program.

For more than half a decade now, we’ve heard unicorn tales of Social Impact Bonds (SIBs), and despite a compelling common-sense soundbite case, SIB sightings are rare, volume is minimal and replicable scalability at best theoretical…because we are having trouble putting together the right ingredients, the right government counterparties and the right sponsors.

Returning equity investor Fannie Mae doesn’t expect the new changes to the tax code will crimp its return to the Low Income Housing Tax Credit market.

Early in my career, when I worked as a sportswriter, Sonny Werblin, then the head of Madison Square Garden and thus the boss of the Knicks and Rangers, said to me, “A budget is a strategy.”

Just last week, I was optimistic that this year’s federal budget cycle, dysfunctional though it is, might offer reasons for hope.

New York City can be as rough, cost-wise, on developers as it is on average joes. For years, the city’s builders have complained that a mix of high property taxes, land values and regulatory costs makes it impossible to build workforce apartments.

Austin, TX, the one enclave of the “Mine’s-Bigger-Than-Yours” Lone Star State proudly possessive of its description as “diversely weird” is taking decisive steps to maintain that distinct status against challenges brought on by its own success.

Rather than providing, we seem to find ourselves in an era of taking away—and predominantly from those who need it most. Health insurance, Medicaid expansion, the right to remain here, access to birth control, endeavors to slow climate change, overall affordability.