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:
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
The ability to leverage our assets in order to provide additional affordable housing opportunities for Jacksonville residents.
-Mary Kay O’Rourke, President & CEO, Habitat for Humanity of Jacksonville, Inc., Florida
We are able to build projects that benefit distressed areas that could not be build otherwise. These projects bring jobs and services to the distressed area.
-Chuck Tollefsen, Tollefsen Development, Tulsa, Oklahoma
But for the NMTC, we would not have been able to make a multimillion dollar investment in downtown Jacksonville. We were one of the only landlords to embark on adaptive reuse at the time in downtown. I do believe that in the next several years we will see if it was successful in catalyzing more investment in downtown.
-Mari Kuraishi, President, The Jessie Ball duPont Fund, 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
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 NMTC] helps bring market solutions to help fill social gaps.
-Irvin Cohen, LISC, Jacksonville, FL
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.
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
The NMTC program has allowed our company to create and preserve jobs in rural areas that would have had high unemployment without our investments there.
-Shelly Butterfield, Tax Manager, Monogram Foods, Memphis, TN
Our community has received tremendous investment for our youth through the NMTC program. Without it, we would not have been able to build and expand our facilities to serve nearly triple the amount of youth in our county – from 200 kids per day up to 550! These programs offer parents peace of mind that their kids will be in a safe, supportive environment every day after school and full days in the summer so our youth can reach their full potential as productive, caring, responsible citizens. The funding received from this program made all of the difference and leveraged private investment from philanthropy to an area of high need and little resources to meet that need. A win for all involved, including our very own Congressman’s support, Vern Buchanan.
-Dawn Stanhope, President & CEO, Boys & Girls Clubs of Manatee County, Florida
Have used the NMTC to serve more families in our GSA on several occasions
-Monte Walker, Habitat for Humanity Jacksonville
But for the NMTC’s, we would have not been able to build a larger facility to serve MORE very young children with developmental delays in our community
-Ginger Young, CEO, The Childhood League Center, Columbus, Ohio
ECAT utilized the first New Market Tax Credit deal in Erie County to rehabilitate an 80,000 sqft closed school building and convert it to a multi-use community facility that includes healthcare, job training, youth programming and social services. As a non-profit, we had no other tool at our disposable to make this vision a reality. In the end, the NMTC allowed us to address blight and make a significant investment in one of the most disinvested neighborhoods in our community. We strongly support the continuance of this program.
-Daria Devlin, Erie Center for Arts & Technology, Erie, PA
The NMTC has been of great benefit in building affordable housing for those in need.
-Monte Walker, Habitat for Humanity, Jacksonville, FL
Development of strong communities will make our nation stronger. The NMTC program is a valuable tool to uplift neighborhoods.
-Edward Gaston, Wealth Watchers, Jacksonville, Florida
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 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
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
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
[The NMTC] is a good, tested and successful way to encourage investment in communities that need a little help.
-Theresa M Chelikowsky, Florida Alliance for Community Solutions, Inc.
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
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 provides much needed financing flexibility to non-profits.
-Gavin Hutchinson, EnableUtah
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
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
