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:
Have used the NMTC to serve more families in our GSA on several occasions
-Monte Walker, Habitat for Humanity Jacksonville
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.
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 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
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 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
The NMTC provides much needed financing flexibility to non-profits.
-Gavin Hutchinson, EnableUtah
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 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] 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.
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
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
We are starting our nonprofit-AlongSide U… Making Poverty Temporary, Not a Lifestyle! This funding makes such a difference in real people living real life!!
-Ginger Diegert-McLean, Administrator, Fill the Need Staffing, Sarasota, Florida
The NMTC provides the means for low-income people to access quality jobs, needed education to access these jobs, healthy foods where they are difficult to access, and health care in areas lacking such facilities.
-Pam Woodell, VP, NMTC, Community First Fund, Lancaster, Pennsylvania
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
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
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
The New Markets Tax Credit program has been and continues to be instrumental in our ability to continue to provide the maximum value for the milk of our members, while ensuring we are building a cooperative that will be here for future generations. The Community Development Entities that partner with us understand the need to support our farmers and building for the future. They are wonderful partners in our mission of long-term success and service to our farmer owners.
-Chris Freeman, CFO of Bongards
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
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
The NMTC has been of great benefit in building affordable housing for those in need.
-Monte Walker, Habitat for Humanity, Jacksonville, FL
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
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 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
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
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
