Hurricane relief tax bill cleared.On Dec. 16, the House and Senate passed a long-negotiated package of tax incentives to rebuild the Gulf Coast. At presstime press·time n. The time at which a publication, especially a newspaper, is submitted for printing. , President Bush was expected to sign the measure. The Gulf Opportunity (GO) Zone Act of 2005 (H.R. 4440) includes several provisions important to real estate. Among other things, the bill allows housing providers to rely on the representations of prospective residents displaced by Hurricane Katrina  Editing of this page by unregistered or newly registered users is currently disabled due to vandalism. to determine whether they satisfy the income limitations for
qualified residential rental projects. This rule applies if the
individual's tenancy begins during the six-month period beginning
when the individual was displaced by Hurricane Katrina. This important
provision augments earlier waivers NAA/NMHC secured to allow owners of
federally subsidized properties, including LIHTC LIHTC Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (program) and tax-exempt bonds,
to make their units available to hurricane evacuees Resident or transient persons who have been ordered or authorized to move by competent authorities, and whose movement and accommodation are planned, organized and controlled by such authorities. .
The measure provides an emergency allocation of low-income housing tax credits The Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC; often pronounced "lye-tech") is a tax credit created under the Tax Reform Act of 1986 (TRA86) that gives incentives for the utilization of private equity in the development of affordable housing aimed at low-income Americans. in 2006, 2007 and 2008 in the GO Zone, which includes the counties and parishes in Louisiana <onlyinclude>The U.S. state of Louisiana is divided into 64 parishes in the same way that 48 of the other states of the United States are divided into counties (Alaska is divided into boroughs and census areas). , Mississippi and Alabama that were designated as warranting individual or public and individual assistance because of Hurricane Katrina. The emergency allocation is $18 per capital--more than nine times the current-law allocation of $1.90 per capita [Latin, By the heads or polls.] A term used in the Descent and Distribution of the estate of one who dies without a will. It means to share and share alike according to the number of individuals. . It also makes an additional $3.5 million in LIHTC authority available to both Texas and Florida in 2006. Finally, the measure increases the size of the credit from 100 percent of qualifying project costs to 130 percent of such costs by designating the GO Zone, Rita Zone and Wilma Zone each as a "Difficult Development Area" in 2006, 2007 and 2008. For a six-month period, the bill provides employers with a 30 percent tax credit for the cost of employer-provided housing (up to $600) for employees located in the GO Zone. It also extends brownfield cleanup cost expensing for two years and expands the program to include petroleum contamination, and it allows 50 percent of cleanup and demolition costs to be expensed immediately. |
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