February 17, 2015

In this week's Tax Credit Tuesday podcast, Michael J. Novogradac, CPA, starts off the general news section with a few updates from the Senate Finance Committee. He discusses bills that the committee marked up last week and what that markup process could indicate about how the committee will handle tax reform proposals. He also discusses a Senate Finance Committee hearing on lessons that could be learned from the last major overhaul of the tax code, nearly 30 years ago. Then he touches on a report that was released by the Joint Committee on Taxation on the history of tax expenditures, and he provides an update from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, or OCC, on revised assets thresholds with regard to Community Reinvestment Act rules. In affordable housing news, he talks about the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and its latest efforts to align operations with the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program. He also shares a new plan between HUD and the state of California to improve energy efficiency in multifamily housing. He closes the section with a new comment letter to the IRS from the LIHTC Working Group on tenant relocation costs. In new markets tax credit news, he provides details on a federal bill that would extend the new markets tax credit permanently. He also talks about two other provisions of the bill that would make the new market tax credit even more effective. Turning to historic tax credit news, he discusses two state-level bills. One would dramatically increase the per-project cap for Georgia's state historic tax credit. The other is an omnibus bill in North Carolina that would bring back several expired tax credits, including the state historic tax credit program. In renewable energy tax credit news, he shares news about a bill that would extend and expand the state production tax credit in New Mexico.