Early word on '06 LIHTC and bond amounts

Deep in the guts of Revenue Procedure 2005-70 (See Sections .07 and .15), the IRS has announced the important 2006 per-capita multipliers and the small-state minimum figures for determining each state's share of low-income housing tax credits (LIHTC) and federal tax-exempt private activity bond authority. All we need now are the official population numbers, which should appear some time around February or March 2006 in a more helpfully explanatory notice similar to this one.

For LIHTC, the multiplier rises from $1.85 per state resident in 2005 to $1.90 per state resident in 2006, and the minimum tax credit ceiling for states with small populations rises from $2,125,000 in 2005 to $2,190,000 for 2006. For states getting the small-population minimum, which is good for about half a dozen new multifamily projects a year, that extra $65,000 in credits probably isn't enough for a whole additional project though it could provide some handy supplements for existing projects facing cost increases. On the other hand, the five-cents-a-head LIHTC increases for California and Texas are worth more than a million dollars in credits that can be claimed in each of ten tax years.

For federal tax-exempt bond authority, the multiplier remains at $80 per state resident for 2006 but the small-state minimum rises from $239,180,000 in 2005 to $246,610,000 for $2006.