Group touts tax break as creating close to 50K jobs

Senior members of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, like Reps. Richard Neal (D-Mass.) and Jim Gerlach (R-Pa.), have given their full backing to the New Markets credit. The credit was last extended, with a slew of other expired or expiring provisions, in the fiscal-cliff deal signed early this year.

{mosads}But with top tax-writers going full speed ahead on tax reform, the credit coalition included a special section on why the incentive should stay in any rewritten tax code – and even be extended permanently. Other groups are making similar cases, underscoring the difficulty of comprehensively reforming the code. 

“Tax reform provides a legislative vehicle for a permanent or indefinite extension of the NMTC and an end to the waiting game,” the group’s report said. “However, it is worth noting that tax reform is not without peril for NMTC. Regardless of assumptions on the net revenue impact of tax reform, the formula to reduce tax rates will include elimination or reduction of some tax expenditures.”