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The congressional Joint Economic Committee (JEC) recently held a hearing to consider the potential positive impacts that Opportunity Zones tax incentives, enacted in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, could have for low-income communities. The Opportunity Zone program is intended to spur investment in distressed communities by allowing taxpayers specialized tax treatment, including deferred capital gains, for investments in Opportunity Funds, which must in turn invest a...

Revenue Procedure 2017-58, released in October 2017, provided the annual inflation adjustments for more than 50 tax provisions, including the tax rate schedules and other tax amounts for 2018, as adjusted for inflation for 2018. But a few months later, Congress passed the new tax law with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The new tax law not only amends the income tax rates for individual taxpayers, but it also includes many other changes that affect individual taxpayers and b...

HUD recently announced the 2018 income limits for the MTSP housing programs effective April 1, 2018. This includes low-income housing tax credits and tax-exempt bond financing. HUD advises that the income limits are effective immediately for all HUD programs, whereas the IRS allows a transition period from the date of publication to implement the new limits. According to IRS Revenue Ruling 94-57, income limits must be implemented on the effective date or no more than 45...

A recent study published by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory found that nearly half of all the residential rooftop solar potential in the United States is available atop low- to moderate-income households, representing a 320 gigawatt opportunity.

HUD recently released “Understanding Whom the LIHTC Program Serves: Data on Tenants in LIHTC Units as of December 31, 2015,” a report that analyzes LIHTC household data collected as a result of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act (HERA) passed in 2008.

The Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies (JCHS) and Enterprise Community Partners recently published a paper that looks at how funding and review processes shape the design of affordable housing. The research effort did not attempt to define “design excellence,” which can be a very subjective assessment. Instead, the research focused on whether and how key actors and processes assessed the design quality of affordable housing developments.

A new analysis by Freddie Mac has concluded that over the past five years, individuals living in apartments with rents restricted through the LIHTC program have saved thousands of dollars annually compared to similar, market-rate properties. Authored by Freddie Mac Multifamily’s Research and Modeling team, the new research looks at nine representative counties across the United States and concludes that in those areas, the average LIHTC-restricted rent was 38 perc...

President Donald Trump recently announced that he will nominate tax attorney Charles Rettig to be the next IRS chief. His five-year term would run from Nov. 13, 2017, when John Koskinen’s term expired. David Kautter, assistant secretary of the Treasury, Tax Policy, has been the acting commissioner since Koskinen’s term ended.

The IRS recently issued the second quarter update to its 2017-18 Priority Guidance Plan. The IRS had issued the initial 2017-2018 Priority Guidance Plan in October 2017. The plan gives an overview of the projects that the IRS intends to address in the plan year ending June 30, 2018. As in prior years, the IRS updates the plan periodically to reflect additional guidance that it intends to publish. With this update, additions include guidance for Opportunity Zones. And st...

The Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution recently released its annual report, Metro Monitor. Metro Monitor tracks economic progress in the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the U.S. using an Inclusive Growth Index. The report shows widespread but uneven progress across most metropolitan areas between 2015 and 2016, and racial disparities in relative poverty persist.