WASHINGTON, DC / May 5, 2025
Today, over 500 businesses, community development organizations, investors, lenders, nonprofits, trade associations and other organizations sent a letter urging Congress to support and pass the bipartisan New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) Extension Act of 2025 (S. 479 / H.R. 1103). This legislation would make the NMTC a permanent fixture in the tax code, ensuring continued investment in economically distressed communities across the United States.
The NMTC has a track record of more than 20 years of financing small businesses, health clinics, manufacturing expansions, workforce training programs, broadband expansions, schools, business incubators, disaster relief efforts, and other revitalization projects that strengthen communities and generate long-term economic growth.
Testimonials in Support of the NMTC:
This is one of the best tools we have to support business growth – small and large businesses, rural and urban, for profit and nonprofit businesses. The vast majority of NMTC-financed projects would not have occurred without the public-private support of the New Markets Tax Credit.
-Julia Nelmark, Midwest Minnesota Community Development Corporation (MMCDC)
The New Markets Tax Credit provision maximizes federal funding while encouraging private investment for significant economic growth; $8/private capital for every $1/federal funding. Permanency will help ensure our nation’s investors and community development professionals have consistent access to the vital resources needed to stimulate private investments in underserved regions… improving communities, generating workforce development opportunities, and inducing long-term economic growth throughout the nation. Please make the New Markets Tax Credit Permanent – Thank you!
-Melanie Holtan, Rural Development Partners
By focusing on sustainable development in low-income areas, the NMTC helps create lasting economic growth. These investments can revitalize communities, leading to improved economic conditions that can support ongoing prosperity. Many of the projects funded by NMTCs include upgrades to essential infrastructure, such as schools, healthcare facilities, and public spaces, which improve the overall quality of life for local residents.
-Alexandria Aydin, Novogradac & Company LLP
We have used NMTC funding in the past with a great amount of success as we were able to help families (build homes) achieve their dream of homeownership that perhaps they may not have been able to without the funding. We have a new subdivision development coming on stream soon where we are hoping to use NMTC funding for some of our homes.
-Ric Oswald, Habitat for Humanity of St. Joseph County
Our goal is to transform communities. This project will convert the most important, undeveloped property in the city into a hub of activity. It will make a significant impact on those that live and work in the city of Lancaster.
-Dan Betancourt, President and CEO, Community First Fund, Pennsylvania
The ability to use NMTC allowed one of our industries, Bongards Creameries, to expand with a $35,000,000 capital investment and the creation of 95 new jobs. With the expansion, the company gave the community a $175,000 workforce development grant.
There have been other companies in West TN which have also taken advantage of the NMTC program in order to expand their operations thereby creating additional capital investment and job creation. The NMTC program is a vital component to help facilitate growth in rural communities.
Please continue the NMTC program and help rural communities grow.
-Kingsley Brock, Director of Economic Development, Gibson County TN Office of Economic Development, Trenton, TN
The NMTC is an important source of financing for businesses and community facilities in America’s most economically distressed rural and urban communities.
-Janet Owens, Executive Director, LISC Jacksonville, Jacksonville, Florida
[The NMTC] helps bring market solutions to help fill social gaps.
-Irvin Cohen, LISC, Jacksonville, FL
NMTC’s have been critical in helping many projects become feasible – in urban and rural areas. All kinds of projects have been possible because of NMTC, such as manufacturing, community facilities, schools, medical facilities, Native American projects. With our loan funds we have financed projects as small as $250,000 with similar benefit’s as our larger projects up to $20 million.
-Julia Nelmark, President, Midwest Minnesota CDC, Detroit Lakes, MN
The NMTC helped us complete the funding we needed to build a 32,000 sq.foot lower school campus/urban equestrian center for children who have intellectual and developmental differences. This will enable us to provide academic resources not only to our students but will serve as a therapeutic recreation center to our community. NMTC has been a gift to the Jacksonville Community!
-Sally Hazelip, Head of School, North Florida School of Special Education, Jacksonville, Florida
The NMTC permanency is an important step toward ensuring our nation’s investors and community development professionals have consistent access to vital resources that help stimulate private investments in underserved regions… improving communities, generating workforce opportunities, and inducing long-term economic growth throughout the nation. Please support this vital legislation. Thank you very much.
-Melanie Holtan, Rural Development Partners
The NMTC made our urban ministry center possible in a location in central Ohio that was unfinanceable according to several financing experts. This, in spite of significant down payment funds available. The result has been a rehabilitated building that has become the epicenter of community renovation and a reversal of major blight in the neighborhood. It has also become home to a youth serving ministry that supports 300-400 youth each year with programming. This is in addition to supporting a charter school providing educational services to 150-200 students each year. The effect of this investment in the lives of young people in this urban neighborhood is hard to estimate in hard dollars, but has been far beyond what was put into it.
-Scott Arnold, Executive Director, Central Ohio Youth For Christ, Columbus, Ohio
NMTC Program is a unique economic development tool to incent new investment in underserved economically distressed area. It is a valuable incentive to assist a local developer to invest in the redevelopment of Jacksonville’s Historic National Guard Armory Building. Built in 1916 and abandoned in 2010.
-Joe Whitaker, Office of Economic Development, City of Jacksonville, FL
The NMTC has been a critical source of funding that has helped us increase the number of affordable housing units we are able to build in underserved neighborhoods.
-Julia Romine, Habitat for Humanity of Greater Memphis, Memphis, Tennessee
NMTC have driven over $100 million in investment into our rural community. Those investments created approximately 1,000 new jobs.
-Lindsay Frilling, Obion County Joint Economic Development Corporation, Union City, Tennessee
Boys & Girls Clubs mission is to enable all young people, especially those who need us most, to reach their full potential as productive, caring, responsible citizens. We do this by offer low to no cost programs after school and during the summer to youth and teens ages 5-17. By giving youth safe spaces where they can learn, grow and thrive with caring mentors, we are strengthening communities and providing life-long skills that will carry young people into adulthood. New Market Tax Credits give organizations like ours the ability to leverage donor resources so we can provide facilities in underserved communities to kids and their families. Together, we are making an impact that provides a return on investment that breaks the cycle of poverty, closes the academic achievement gap, and lifts up our entire community.
-Dawn Stanhope, Boys & Girls Clubs of Manatee County, Inc.
Working with our NMTC Borrowers I have seen first hand what a difference this program can make with our Borrowers stories. From the business to their employees to the their communities it really can change people’s lives.
-Tim Swenson, Midwest Minnesota Community Development Corporation, Detroit Lakes, MN
Without the NMTC program my organization would not have been able to build a state-of-the-art facility to assist the individuals with disabilities that we serve.
-Gavin Hutchinson, EnableUtah, Ogden, UT
NMTC allows nontraditional investors to help in the revitalization and economic growth of lower-wealth communities across Florida.
-Terrt Chelikowsky, Florida Alliance of Community Development Corporations, Inc., Jacksonville, Florida
Without NMTC support, we would not have been able to complete the renovation of our public library that helped spur further redevelopment of the downtown including a park and BID district.
-Erika J Connelly, Kanawha County Public Library
The NMTC has been of great benefit in building affordable housing for those in need.
-Monte Walker, Habitat for Humanity, Jacksonville, FL
The NMTC provides much needed financing flexibility to non-profits.
-Gavin Hutchinson, EnableUtah
Have used the NMTC to serve more families in our GSA on several occasions
-Monte Walker, Habitat for Humanity Jacksonville
I have received a NMTC and renovated an inner-city property. It has had a transformative effect on the community.
-Michael Mitchell, Treasures Markets Benefits LLC
The Tax Credit model has allowed our organization to create over 370 permanent supportive and affordable housing units in Florida!
-Phillip Brooks, Community Assisted and Supported Living, Sarasota, Florida
Across the country, more than $140 billion in private capital has been invested in businesses with the help of the NMTC, creating over 1.2 million jobs. Over 25 percent of NMTC projects are in rural areas, and most investments are in severely distressed areas that far exceed the statutory requirements for economic distress. More than 2,500 success stories in every state and congressional district can be found on the Coalition’s website.
“The New Markets Tax Credit has proven to be an invaluable resource in rural, urban, and suburban communities around the country,” said Bob Rapoza, spokesman for the New Markets Tax Credit Coalition. “This important financing is needed to create jobs, provide vital services like day care and health care, support small manufacturing businesses, and so many more of the services our communities need. We hope that Congress will continue its bipartisan support for the Credit and make it permanent this year.”
The NMTC, which is set to expire at the end of 2025, provides taxpayers investing in Community Development Entities (CDEs) with a 39 percent credit against federal income taxes over seven years. A CDE is a community development organization, such as a CDFI or private financial institution, with a track record of lending and investing in economically distressed rural and urban communities. In addition to the permanent extension, the legislation would provide $5 billion in annual allocation authority, an inflation adjustment in the out-years, and an exception to the Alternative Minimum Tax for NMTC investments.
About the New Markets Tax Credit Coalition
The New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) Coalition is a national membership organization founded in 1998 to advocate on behalf of the NMTC program. The Coalition, which includes some 170 members, is managed by Rapoza Associates, a public interest lobbying, policy analysis and government relations firm located in Washington, DC that specializes in providing comprehensive legislative and support services to community development organizations, associations and public agencies.
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 1.2 million jobs. Today, due to the NMTC, over $140 billion is hard at work in underserved communities in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, the Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands, and Puerto Rico. For more information, read: The New Markets Tax Credit: At Work in Communities Across America and visit www.NMTCCoalition.org.
Contact Details
Greg Wilson
+1 571-239-7474
gregwilsonpr@gmail.com
