With a continuing resolution (CR) passed Nov. 21 to fund the government through the Friday before Christmas, Dec. 20 will be the next date for housing advocates to circle on the calendar.
“Turn down the noise and focus on what we’re trying to accomplish with the Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act (AHCIA),” said Bob Moss, principal and national director of governmental affairs at accounting firm CohnReznick. “What we would like to see is some kind of big omnibus like we did in 2018 in exchange for the grain glitch. The worst-case scenario if we have a CR again, with all the other things going on with impeachment hearings, is not good for appropriated housing budgets or us at this point.”
David Gasson, executive director of the Housing Advisory Group and vice president at Boston Capital, agreed with Moss, saying housing advocates want Congress to pass a budget in December with an attached tax title and not another CR, which would hinder the industry from getting AHCIA provisions enacted. “Next year is a wash, and nothing is going to be big enough to carry a tax vehicle,” he told AHF Live attendees during the annual Capitol Hill Update in mid-November. “I am an optimist, I think we are looking good to get a tax vehicle attached to the budget by the end of the year, and on that we will get something on the AHCIA.”
The AHCIA of 2019, S. 1703 and H.R. 3077, seeks to expand and strengthen the low-income housing tax credit. The legislation has received broad bipartisan support with 35 co-sponsors in the Senate and 176 co-sponsors in the House.
This year, the Senate and House bills are identical. New provisions include making the tax credit more effective in hard-to-reach rural and Native American communities and for populations like homeless veterans as well as bond recycling, which would help in private-activity bond-constrained states. But the big provisions are still similar to what the industry saw last year—locking in the 4% LIHTC credit rate for financing with housing bonds and tax credits as well as the 9% LIHTC allocation increase by 50% phased in over five years. These two changes would increase production by an estimated 450,000 homes over the next 10 years.
“The increase in resources is so desperately needed across the country so these are our high priorities,” said Shannon Ross, vice president of government relations at the Housing Partnership Network. “I think that we have been pretty clear and unified around the 4% floor. There’s chances for some other provisions, but our continued ask is for the 4% floor. We’re asking for all of it, but the reality of how tax bills come together means only a few provisions will move.”
Congress still has a lot of work to pass a budget on Dec. 20, and negotiations over the next several weeks will be critical.
“If there is a tax bill, the tax credit is definitely in play,” added Gasson. “What we get is what we get, but we are absolutely advocating that the 4% fix be at least the provision, if not one of the provisions, we get.”
