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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.

Representative Yvette Clarke (D-NY) recently introduced the “Affordable Housing and Area Median Income Fairness Act of 2019” (H.R.4984). The bill attempts to change how HUD calculates the area median income (AMI). For Clarke’s constituency, the AMI calculation incorporates not just mean earnings in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Staten Island, Queens, and the Bronx, but also those of the affluent counties of Westchester and Rockland counties. Her bill would subtract those suburbs from the equation, resulting in a much lower AMI figure.

Recently, congressional Democrats have been increasing oversight efforts over the Opportunity Zone (OZ) program. This program is a community investment incentive established by Congress in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 to encourage long-term investments in low-income urban and rural communities nationwide. Treasury and the IRS have yet to finalize the regulations governing OZ investment.

Freddie Mac recently released a white paper highlighting the role that the LIHTC program serves in the rural Lower Mississippi Delta. The report shows that the LIHTC program supports a substantial percentage (39.2 percent) of multifamily rental housing in the region, more than three times the national average. The white paper, titled “LITHC in Rural Lower Mississippi Delta,” is part of Freddie Mac’s three-year Duty to Serve plan to increase rental and homeownership opportunities in historically underserved markets throughout the nation.

The New Democrat Coalition (NDC) is a Congressional Member Organization within the U.S. Congress made up of centrist Democrats who support an agenda that the organization describes as “moderate” and “pro-growth” and who support a balanced budget. Entering the 116th Congress, the NDC has 101 members, making it the largest caucus in the Democratic Party and the second largest in Congress.

An Indiana Tax Court recently reversed an Indiana Board of Tax Review’s final determination that concluded a low-income apartment complex owner failed to prove it qualified for a charitable purposes exemption. In 2007, the owner purchased a HUD site for low-income renters in the county. The owner didn’t receive tax credits when it bought the property but operated it as an LIHTC apartment complex.

Congressman Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) recently released a housing report entitled, “Locked Out: Reversing Federal Housing Failures and Unlocking Opportunity.” It calls on the federal government to “reassert its partnership to become a constructive force for equity, accessibility, and opportunity in solving the housing crisis.”