Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, recently released a list of affordable housing priorities he will push for in the next round of COVID-19 relief legislation. His priorities are directed toward supporting LIHTC sites. Wyden’s focus on preserving and expanding affordable housing through the LIHTC program is particularly notable because he would become chairman of the committee should Democrats take the Senate in the fall.
In late March, HUD released the latest annual report that analyzes LIHTC household data collected as a result of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act (HERA) passed in 2008. Among other things, HERA requires each housing finance agency (HFA) that administers the LIHTC to submit certain demographic and economic information on tenants in LIHTC units. HUD collects information about race, ethnicity, family composition, age, income, use of rental assistance, disability status, and monthly rental payments.
Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies (JCHS) recently released its annual “America’s Rental Housing 2020” report. The new report shows that rental markets are still extremely tight despite slowing demand and the continued strength of new construction. The JCHS report finds vacancy rates at the lowest level since the mid-1980s and rents continuing their climb for the seventh year straight.
Representative Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., recently released a report entitled, “Locked Out: Reversing Federal Housing Failures and Unlocking Opportunity.” The report identifies the LIHTC program as the largest form of federal assistance to state and local governments in the form of a tax credit and not a direct expenditure.
The House Ways and Means Committee recently held a hearing called “Paving the Way for Funding and Financing Infrastructure Investments.” The hearing was held the same day that House Democrats unveiled their outline for a $760 billion infrastructure package that includes LIHTC as a tool for community development.
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals recently dismissed a discrimination lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Treasury and the Office of Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). This long-running lawsuit was brought by the Inclusive Communities Project (ICP), the same organization that pursued a similar lawsuit against Texas’ LIHTC allocating agency.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) recently announced proposed regulations that may affect LIHTC investments. The proposed regulations are intended to modernize the agencies’ regulations under the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), which haven’t been substantively updated for nearly 25 years. The CRA was enacted in 1977 to encourage insured depository institutions to help meet the credit needs in their local communities, including low- and moderate-income neighborhoods.
The fiscal year (FY) 2020 appropriations bills recently passed through Congress and was signed by President Trump before the Dec. 20 deadline, averting a government shutdown like the one experienced with the FY 2019 spending bills. The FY 2020 measures include appropriations for Transportation-HUD, as well as the tax extenders.
Nearly two years after the Opportunity Zone initiative was enacted into law as part of the 2017 Tax Cuts & Jobs Act, the Treasury Department and the IRS has issued final regulations on Qualified Opportunity Funds. The final regulations are a modification and merger of the first and second tranches of regulatory guidance and provide additional clarification on topics that remained unresolved after the first two sets of proposed regulation. In total, the notice is 544 pages in length.
The IRS recently published Revenue Procedure 2019-44, which provides the per capita and small state minimum levels for the LIHTC and Private Activity Bonds (PABs). These volume cap figures are adjusted annually for inflation. And, for the LIHTC, the volume cap includes the temporary 12.5 percent increase called for when Congress passed the FY2018 omnibus spending bill.
