NMTC Coalition Applauds Tax Credit Permanence in FY2025 Budget Proposal

Cloud PRWire

–News Direct–

On March 11, 2024, the Biden Administration released its FY2025 budget proposal. The budget includes a permanent extension of the New Markets Tax Credit at $5 billion a year in the annual allocation authority with an inflation adjustment in the out years. In 2019, Congress increased the annual allocation of NMTC credits to $5 billion, and in 2020, Congress enacted a five-year extension of the NMTC, the largest in the programs history. The program, however, is set to expire in 2025 unless extended or made permanent.

The New Markets Tax Credit has been and remains absolutely vital for many of Americas urban neighborhoods and rural communities and provides billions of dollars for high-impact, community revitalization projects, said Bob Rapoza, spokesperson for the NMTC Coalition. Over the years, the credit has been instrumental in financing plant and equipment for small manufacturing businesses and patient, flexible capital to other small businesses, hospitals, healthcare centers, homeless shelters and other transformative projects that improve communities, and create jobs and economic opportunity. We applaud the Presidents leadership and commitment to this important program, as well as the bipartisan support of leaders in both chambers.

All NMTC projects are in low-income communities, and the vast majority of NMTC investments are located in communities where the magnitude of economic distress far exceeds the statutory requirements for qualified investments.

NMTC allocation applicants face stiff competition. In 2023, applicants requested more than $14 billion in awards, nearly three times the amount available. The application rewards community development entity applicants who propose investments in areas of severe distress. While all NMTC projects must be located in qualified low-income communities, and according to NMTC Coalition survey data and CDFI Fund transaction data, roughly 75 to 85 percent are located severely distressed census tracts with extremely high poverty and unemployment rates.

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. Throughout its 20-year history, the NMTC has delivered more than $125 billion to rural and urban communities outside the economic mainstream, which has led to financing to more than 8,000 businesses and projects and over one million jobs.

Establishing the NMTC as a permanent part of the tax code, as proposed by the President in his budget request, will provide certainty and further promote getting patient, flexible capital to low-income and marginalized communities, creating jobs, increasing economic opportunity, and improving lives at a time when the economic frailty of our underserved communities has never been more apparent, said Rapoza.

Established in 2000 in the Community Renewal Tax Relief Act (P.L.106-554), the New Markets Tax Credit is a bipartisan effort to stimulate investment and economic growth in low-income urban neighborhoods and rural communities.

For examples of how the NMTC is making an impact in each state, see the NMTC Coalitions website, where you can find more than 2,500 NMTC success stories organized by state and congressional district.

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 one million jobs. Today, due to the NMTC, more than $125 billion is hard at work in underserved communities in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, and Puerto Rico. For more information, visit www.NMTCCoalition.org.