U.S. House and Senate leaders have released their final tax bill, which will maintain the entire current category of Private Activity Bonds (PABs). The future of PABs had been in jeopardy since the November 2nd release of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which repealed in full the tax exemption for PABs. CDFA and its partners have tirelessly advocated in defense of PABs, and the full inclusion of PABs in the final bill represents a major legislative victory for the development finance industry.

Alongside the preservation of PABs, LIHTC, NMTCs, and HTC, the final GOP tax bill will include the Investing in Opportunity Act. The Investing in Opportunity Act enables states to establish "opportunity zones" where investors are able to defer capital gains as long as they invest in existing or new businesses. 

Alongside PABs, the final tax bill will preserve the low income housing tax credit, the new markets tax credit, the historic tax credit, the renewable energy investment tax credit, and the production tax credit.

The final tax bill will preserve PABs and tax-exempt bonds for professional sports stadiums. However, advance refundings and tax credit bonds are eliminated by this bill effective January 1, 2018. Tim Fisher of CDFA is quoted in the piece.

The Ohio Development Services Agency awarded $28,370,452 in Ohio Historic Preservation Tax Credits to rehabilitate 22 historic buildings in 11 communities. The projects are expected to lead to approximately $165,386,833 in private investment.

Incentives were big news in 2017. The popular conversation was dominated by coverage of the Foxconn investment in Wisconsin and Amazon's RFP for its HQ2 site. This article recaps the Smart Incentives most popular blog posts for 2017.

Infrastructure improvements and $100 million in private investment in east Amarillo are set to kick into gear after the City Council this week gave final approval to a TIRZ along Interstate 40. The first public infrastructure improvement will be a $6M sewer line that will serve the expanding district.

The Atlanta City Council voted to allot $5 million in transportation special-purpose local option sales tax (TSPLOST) funding to the project, while the Atlanta Regional Commission included $7.42 million in its transportation improvement program project list that allocates funding from the Federal Highway Administration.

The funding was approved through DEED's Angel Loan Fund, which provides loans equal to 10 percent of private equity raised by qualifying emerging businesses. Sezzle will receive the DEED loan once it has raised $2.5 million from private investors.

More than $40 million was invested by the United States Department of Agriculture in FY2017 to help construct or improve infrastructure and boost economic growth in rural communities. More than $900,000 of which was directed to Illinois.

The Florida Development Finance Corp. canceled an emergency meeting Monday that had been called to approve $1.15 billion of private activity bonds for the All Aboard Florida passenger train project.

Portland, Ore., will use proceeds from the city's $258 million housing bond to build affordable apartments on a Southeast Portland property formerly home to a strip club.

President Trump may wait until January to sign the tax bill in order to postpone to 2019 across-the-board spending cuts — including federal subsidy payments for Build America Bonds and other direct-pay bonds.

Merit Development, of Fairmont, WV, is redeveloping the former Owens-Illinois Glass Factory into a business park. With cleanup complete, Merit is ready to undertake several other development challenges on the site including FEMA floodplain compliance and relocation of a sanitation line. The future Speedway Business Park will add approximately 180,000 square feet of new commercial space to the market.

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