From the Land of OZ – States continue to add benefits to their OZ sites!

Good morning from the Land of OZ, it’s been a busy and interesting start to the new week with conversations about deals in all kinds of neat places – from Philly to Orlando, Ohio to Pennsylvania, the NJ shore to California and even to Alaska where I had a lovely chat with a business owner with capital gains yesterday who wanted to discuss how best to create a QOF. Fun stuff and the hectic pace of play continues – meaning, there is a lot going on despite what you may read elsewhere.

According to Novogradac, over $7.57 Billion dollars has been raised in QOFs in the funds they track (513 funds- 308 of which have raised equity) and these funds will be used to build and rehab buildings and businesses with an goal of $68.75 Billion of investment capacity.

State Updates:

Connecticut – Workforce Housing and OZs – Legislation that was recently introduced in the Connecticut General Assembly would expand the state’s workforce housing tax credit program to include properties in opportunity zones (OZs) and would change definitions for workforce housing in other parts of the state. S.B. 184 would add properties in OZs to the definition of “eligible workforce housing development projects.” According to Novogradac, the bill would also redefine workforce housing as a property where 10% of units are for low-income renters, 40% are available at 20% of the area’s prevailing rent, and the remainder are available at market rate. The legislation would double the statewide annual cap for the workforce housing tax credit to $20 Million.

Utah – HB 299 has been approved by the House in Utah. It enables added incentives for electric vehicle charging stations in Opportunity Zones, provides priority of review of OZ projects, allows for low income housing tax credits to be issued to projects in Utah OZs, provides preference for qualified opportunity zone. The bill also allows for 25% tax credits for certain parking lot construction projects located in OZs located within Utah.

Wisconsin – A bill to conform Wisconsin’s tax code to the federal Internal Revenue Code concerning opportunity zones (OZs) and to double the exclusion for capital gains invested in Wisconsin-based OZs passed the state Senate and is on the desk of Gov. Tony Evers for approval according to Novogradac. AB 532 would allow an additional 10% capital gains tax reduction for investors who hold investments in a Wisconsin-centered qualified opportunity fund (QOF) – defined as a QOF that holds at least 90% of its assets in Wisconsin OZ projects for 5 years and an additional 15% reduction for investors who hold their investment for 7 years.

Miscellaneous – we are hosting our monthly OZ webinar on March 4th at 1 pm EST. Guests for this upcoming month are Jill Homan of Javelin Investments and James Solomon of Ravinia Capital and we will be focusing on the OZ deals they have funded and what they are looking at and seeing in the OZ space. If interested, drop me an email and happy to have you join us.

Around on line if you want to discuss anything OZ or otherwise. Best regards – Brad

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The opinions expressed on this blog are those of the author and are not to be construed as legal advice.

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