Inching Towards Permanence

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The New Markets Tax Credit Extension Act of 2015

Now is the perfect time to tell Members of Congress what you think about S. 591 and H. R. 855. Introduced in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives respectively last February, these bills are identical twins with the same name, “New Markets Tax Credit Extension Act of 2015. Both have the same wording and purpose, and are summarized the exact same way by the Congressional Research Service, Congress’s nonpartisan research office:

Amends the Internal Revenue Code to: (1) make permanent the new markets tax credit, (2) provide for an inflation adjustment to the limitation amount for such credit after 2014, and (3) allow an offset against the alternative minimum tax for such credit (determined with respect to qualified equity investments initially made after the enactment of this Act).

Both S. 591 and H.R. 855 have strong bipartisan sponsors—to-date more than five dozen in the House, and seven in the Senate. Both have been assigned to committees, both await action; and both are still gaining bipartisan strength. Ten of 16 Representatives from the key presidential swing state of Ohio, for example, have already endorsed H.R. 855.

And there’s one more reason to express your opinion: both can be amended as they go through committee and are subjected to floor action.