The Future Of Alternative Zones – Tax

Tax Facts is the newest podcast from Buchanan Ingersoll &
Rooney all about the world of tax law and new changes that affect
businesses and investors alike.

On our first episode, Lisa Starczewski and Lafe Metz of Buchanan
Ingersoll & Rooney discuss the world of Opportunity Zones,
important deadlines for the program, and what the future holds for
this valuable tax-incentive-laden investment tool.

Lisa Starczewski is a shareholder at Buchanan and chair of the
firm’s Tax section as well as its Opportunity Zones Team. Lafe
Metz is also a shareholder at Buchanan and chair of the firm’s
Real Estate practice group.

In the episode, Starczewski and Metz cover:

  • The history of Opportunity Zones and
    what the March 31, 2021 deadline actually means.
  • How investors can still take
    advantage of this program.
  • How the 2020 Census may impact the
    Opportunity Zones Program.
  • What changes the COVID-19 relief
    packages made to the Opportunity Zones Program.
  • How potential changes to tax rates
    and the OZ provisions could impact the program.

Listen to
the Podcast

Podcast Transcript

Lafe Metz:  Welcome to the first episode
of Buchanan Ingersoll and Rooney’s Tax
Facts.  This is a podcast about the world of tax law, the
new changes that affect businesses and investors alike. My name is
Lafe Metz, and I’m your host today. I’m a shareholder at
Buchanan and the chair of the firm’s Real Estate group. I’m
very pleased to welcome my colleague Lisa Starczewski who’s
also a shareholder at Buchannan and is the chair of our firm’s
Tax section, as well as the chair of our Opportunity Zones team.
Lisa, thank you so much for being here. I’m thrilled to be
talking with you.

Lisa Starczewski:  Of course, Lafe.
It’s a pleasure to be here.

Lafe Metz:  Lisa, you are what I consider
to be one of the leading experts in the world on Opportunity Zone
matters, and so it’s a privilege for me to get to be here and
talk with you about that more. And I know there’s been a lot of
recent activity in the Opportunity Zone world, and there are some
deadlines that are going to be important to many clients and other
taxpayers. So, can you tell us what the March 31st deadline is all
about and why our clients will care about it?

Lisa Starczewski:  Before I do that, let
me just give you a very brief overview of the Opportunity Zone (OZ)
program and just make sure that all our listeners are on the same
page with respect to what it is. The OZ program allows taxpayers
who have realized capital gains from, for example, a sale of stock,
the sale of real estate, the sale of a business, etc., to defer
paying tax on that capital gain, and instead invest it in an
Opportunity Zone, through an entity that we call a Qualified
Opportunity Fund or a QOF.

There are several tax benefits to making this type of
investment. One is the deferral itself on the tax with respect to
that original capital gain that’s being invested. That gain
will not be taxed until 2026. The second benefit is the fact that a
portion of that gain that was invested may never be taxed, up to
15% of it, depending on when the OZ investment is made.

And the third benefit, and perhaps the most impactful one, is
the fact that if a taxpayer makes this type of investment and holds
it for at least 10 years, none of the appreciation on the
investment is ever taxed.

The idea behind the program was to incentivize the movement of
money into targeted geographic areas in order to bring economic
improvement and prosperity to those places. There are 8,700
designated Qualified Opportunity Zones across the U.S. and U.S.
Territories.

So now let me get back to your question about March
31st. The OZ program has a number of requirements that
have to be met in order for those tax benefits I just described to
apply. And many of the requirements impose timetables on both the
original investor and the fund and the entities the fund invests
into. With respect to this original investor who has realized
capital gain and wants to invest in an opportunity zone, the
taxpayer has 180-day period within which to take that gain and move
it into a Qualified Opportunity Fund. The 180-day rules are
complicated. There are special rules that apply to pass through
gain. There are exceptions, and I’m not going to get into all
of that. But the March 31st deadline is important because as part
of the COVID-19 relief that the IRS provided to the OZ program, it
has extended that 180-day time period for investors so that a
taxpayer, whose 180-day period would otherwise have been expired,
may still be able to take advantage of the program if they move the
money by March 31st, 2021. Gain from as far back as 2019 might
still be eligible under this relief. It’s important to remember
though, that what has to happen by that date is movement of the
money into a Qualified Opportunity Fund entity, not that the money
has to be put to work in a zone. In a specific property in a
specific project. It just has to be invested into the fund entity
by March 31st.

Lafe Metz:  Can you say again how does it
work with the COVID-19 relief? So, I think you were saying this
isn’t just 180 days back in the past from here, so it’s not
like it went from September 30th, 2020 until now. It reaches
further back than that. Can you say a bit more about that?

Lisa Starczewski:  It does. It reaches all
the way back to 2019 and in fact, if it’s pass-through gain, if
it’s gain that was generated in a partnership or an LLC or an
S-Corp, or a certain trust, it can be gain that was realized as far
back as January 1st of 2019. So in many instances this can be old
gain. And it can be gain that the taxpayers already paid tax on,
but will be allowed to amend those returns and be refunded that tax
if they make the decision to move the money by March
31st, and they move the money into the fund by that
date.

Lafe Metz:  If I’m an investor, how do
I know if something is a Qualified Opportunity Fund?

Lisa Starczewski:  So, there is not
anything magical about a Qualified Opportunity Fund entity versus
any other business entity, so a fund can be organized as a
partnership, as a corporation, included in a partnership, of
course, in an LLC or as an S-Corp. So, it’s just an entity.
There is nothing magical about it. It doesn’t have to have any
certain number of owners, other than the fact that it cannot be a
disregarded entity.

Lafe Metz:  Thank you. And so, let’s
imagine that I’m somebody who has some gain that I would love
to invest in an opportunity fund, but I haven’t found one yet.
Is it possible to just create one myself and park the money in
there and then later further invest it in a different fund or in a
zone if I figure it out later?

Lisa Starczewski:  The answer is yes. The
investor could create their own, let’s say partnership or LLC,
because that is the most-often-used type of entity in this scenario
and park the money there by March 31st to meet the deadline and
then a couple of different things could happen. The money could be
backed out of that entity and into a different Qualified
Opportunity Fund, and there would be different requirements that
have to be met in terms of the timing for that. It would restart
their clock in terms of a 10-year hold for the gain exclusion after
10 years. What also could happen is that fund can then look for
entities out there that are developing projects in opportunity
zones. Because the fund is allowed to then invest in another entity
that acts as the qualified opportunity zone business. In fact, that
two-tier structure is what applies almost all of the time. So, the
thing that fund cannot do is invest in another Qualified
Opportunity Fund. That is not allowed under the rules.

Lafe Metz:  OK, got it. So, with the March
31st deadline, we started talking about that because it was relief
that the IRS had offered in response to COVID-19. They’re
trying to relax some of the deadlines. Is there any other type of
relief that the IRS has made available for the OZ program?

Lisa Starczewski:  Yes, there absolutely
is. So, the relief to investors was just one part of the relief the
IRS provided in this recent notice. They also provided relief to
the fund itself, as well as to entities into which the fund might
invest, which we refer to as Qualified Opportunity Zone Businesses
or QOZB’s, which you might hear about.

So, the fund itself is subject to a 90% investment standard.
Pursuant to which 90% of its assets have to meet certain
requirements. Essentially, they have to be put to work in an
opportunity zone, either through direct ownership of property or
ownership of qualified opportunity zone businesses. If the fund
fails to comply with that 90% test, which generally applies every
six months, there is a financial penalty that’s imposed on the
fund. And it’s been really difficult for funds that were
created back in 2018-2019 and early 2020 to get work done.
Construction halted in some instances because of the pandemic. It
was difficult to get permitting done. It was hard to visit to go to
other geographies and look for viable projects. And so, the IRS has
decided to give significant relief with respect to that 90% test.
As an example, for a calendar year fund entity, all of 2020 and all
of 2021 is essentially not going to count for purposes of that 90%
test. The fund is not going to have to meet the test for those
years.

In addition, there’s a number of tests and requirements at
the Qualified Opportunity Zone Business level. And there are
requirements to substantially improve certain property that’s
purchased either by the fund or by the business. All of those
timetables that are involved in those requirements have been
alleviated to some extent in the relief. I’m not going to get
into all of the nitty gritty of those rules, but the moral of the
story here is that funds and qualified opportunity zone businesses
have been given significant breaks and have much longer runways to
properly invest the money that’s been invested and to develop
projects in opportunities zones. For anyone who wants more
information on the relief, I have a client advisory that I wrote on that
topic.

Lafe Metz:  Switching gears a little bit,
the Opportunity Zone program was created in the Tax Cuts and Jobs
Act of 2017 during the Trump Administration. What’s your
feeling about how the public is perceiving the program? Is this
perceived as a Republican program? Is it something that the Biden
Administration favors and wants to continue?

Lisa Starczewski:  I think you just have
to look back at the history of the program to realize that, no,
this is this is not a partisan program, and this was not a
Republican program, and it was not a Trump program. The OZ program
has been highly politicized over the last couple of years for a
variety of reasons. But the reality is that the idea behind this
program originated several years ago with Sean Parker of Facebook
fame, and a think tank that he created called the Economic
Innovation Group. And the point of that group, and of Sean Parker
back many years ago was to try to analyze how a change in tax
policy could address and impact inequity. The OZ program received
bipartisan support from its inception, and its inception was not in
the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Instead, its legislative inception was
in a separate piece of legislation called the Investing and
Opportunity Act that was introduced prior to tax reform by
Republican Senator Tim Scott and Democratic Senator Cory Booker.
So, there is absolutely a bipartisan history to the program, and I
believe there is continued bipartisan support for the program.

 Lafe Metz:  So, do you think there
are going to be any meaningful changes to the program during the
Biden Administration?

Lisa Starczewski:  Well, first, I think
that Biden and his administration have a real opportunity here to
correct the story with respect to the OZ program and reiterate that
the program was, in fact, the result of bipartisan efforts. They
were able, in a sense, to rebrand it and really encourage the use
of the program to manifest the originally intended results. There
was some speculation early on that the OZ program could be
eliminated under Biden. But that does not seem to be the direction
that Biden is going in or the Congress is going in. Instead, what
they’re doing is suggesting certain changes to the program that
would provide greater transparency and would give people a better
sense and a data-driven sense as to whether or not this program is
working and where it’s working and where it’s not working.
You know, are we moving the needle on economic metrics in
low-income communities?

I think, as I said, that there’s still widespread support,
but there is a desire to pass additional legislation or additional
regulatory guidance. And I think we’re going to see that in one
of four or all of four different areas. And I’m going to
quickly talk about those.

  • One is that Biden has said that he
    wants to incentivize funds to partner with nonprofits and other
    community-oriented organizations and to work together to create
    projects that are focused on job creation and other local
    benefits.
  • The second area, and I think
    we’re definitely going to see some form of this is increased
    reporting by funds and by Qualified Opportunity Zone businesses
    with respect to infusions of cash where the money is being put to
    work and then the results. How many jobs have been created? What
    economic metrics have changed as a result of the OZ
    investment?
  • The other thing we might see is
    changes to the tracks themselves. There was a new census in 2020,
    and we may see some movement legislatively with respect to the
    actual tracks
  • And then the last thing is
    there’s been a little bit of talk. I don’t know if it’s
    just wishful thinking, or how real it really is, about extending
    the 2026 deadline. And just kind of extending the program out. And
    of course, if they did that then those deadlines, I talked about
    2021 being important and we’re going to talk more about that a
    little bit, would change because 2026 would become something later
    than that. The gain could be deferred for longer, and there would
    be more opportunity for people to invest in qualified opportunity
    funds and get all of the tax benefits.

Lafe Metz:  One concern I’ve heard
some people raise going back to the question of will the program
change under the Biden Administration, is what happens if
there’s a change to the capital gains tax rate? Do you have
thoughts on that?

Lisa Starczewski:  There are a number of
tax changes that have been floated. And there are a couple of them
that may substantially impact the OZ program, but not necessarily
in a negative way. So let’s talk about the capital gains
increase. Yes, we could see a very substantial capital gains
increase. Right now, it’s 20% for the most part, plus the 3.8%
net investment income tax, so it’s 23.8%. And it could increase
to as high as 43.4% if we look at the highest income rate that
might be imposed on ordinary income, which could go back up to
39.6%, then we add that 3.8%, right? So that’s a really hefty
change in the capital gains rate. And investors are going to pay
tax on this deferred gain at whatever rate is in effect in 2026,
not the rate that’s in effect when the gain is realized, so
they would be subject to that increased rate if the rate is in fact
as high as that in 2026.

But let’s remember that at the end of the 10 years, if they
hold for 10 years, that all of the appreciation is tax free. That
benefit ends up being worth a whole lot more economically if what
they’re saving is 43.4% and not 23.8%. Because if they had
taken that money and they had put it to work anywhere else and they
earned that same amount of appreciation, it’s taxable. It’s
taxed at 43.4%. So honestly, in conversations with my clients and
in conversations with colleagues, we kind of talk about the
negative of the impact on the deferred gain and that the rate might
be increased on that. But if the OZ investment is really successful
and if there is significant appreciation. That is and should be far
outweighed by the benefit at the end of the 10 years.

Lafe Metz:  You were mentioning a moment
ago the importance of 2026 and how that relates to the importance
of this year 2021. And would you mind explaining that again?

Lisa Starczewski:  So, at the beginning
when I talked about the three benefits, the second one I talked
about was that a portion of that deferred gain might never be
taxed. The only way that can be true is if on December 31, 2026,
the investor can look back and say, OK, I’ve held my investment
for seven years by 2026. And so, 15% of my gain is never going to
be taxed. Or I’ve held my investment for at least five years
and therefore 10% of my gain is never going to be taxed. So, we
think about that, right? If it’s the end of 2026 and I have to
have held for seven years in order to get the 15% cut, I had to
have been in by the end of 2019. And if it’s 2026 and I’m
looking for the 10% cut, I have to be in by the end of 2021. So,
the end of 2021 is very important because anyone who goes into a
fund after 2021, which you absolutely can still do, there are still
great benefits to it. They’re still the 10-year benefit, but
there won’t be any forgiveness of the originally deferred gain
if you go into the fund after December 31, 2021 unless the 2026
date is extended.

Lafe Metz:  I hope that those deadlines
get extended because you know it’s complicated. It’s a
complicated program, and it feels like it took the marketplace a
while to get comfortable with it. And now that it’s understood,
some of the key benefits are not available anymore because of the
deadlines having been passed or quickly approaching.

Lisa Starczewski:  Yeah, that’s
absolutely true, but it’s a really good point. I mean, if for
no other reason, because it took a while to get regulations that
gave us any information on how to actually apply the program. And
we had two sets of proposed regulations. Then we had final
regulations, then we had clarifications that made substantive
changes to those final regulations. It took a long time for
practitioners, investors, and taxpayers to have a real sense of how
this was going to work, and prior to that they were really taking
risks. You know, putting money into funds, and some people did, but
not the numbers that they were really hoping for. So, I agree
there’s good reason to extend it.

Lafe Metz:  Let’s talk about the
Census a little bit. You were mentioning earlier that the 2020
Census may have some impacts on the Opportunity Zone program, and
maybe you can just go back a tiny bit and help us understand how
the 2010 Census was important to this program and then what the
2020 Census changes might lead to.

Lisa Starczewski:  Well, the tracks were
designated as Opportunity Zones in the spring of 2018. The
governors of every state made these designations. And there were
parameters with respect to how they created, designated tracts, and
whether a tract qualified and the factors that went into the
decision of whether a particular tract qualified had to do with
whether or not that tract met the requirements of a low-income
community. Was it considered a low-income community? But the data
that was used to determine that was old data. It was data from the
2010 Census.

And so, as you can well imagine, there were areas that had seen
significant development from 2010 to 2018 and yet could still be
designated as Qualified Opportunity Zones, and in fact, that’s
where some of the criticism of the program has come from. It’s
come from the fact that a lot of these zones, when you look at
them, you kind of scratch your head and say, “how is this a
low-income community?” It really isn’t anymore, and
therefore it’s a very sweet spot to park opportunity zone
investment because your chances of long-term appreciation are much
higher, right? It’s a much lower risk investment. So that is
how the 2010 Census was relevant. The designations were made. There
is a notice that lists every single tract that is a Qualified
Opportunity Zone, but changes have been made, significant changes
to those tracts. Either the boundaries have expanded or the tract
has shrunk under the new data, or they have been split into more
than one tract. And so, when you’re looking at this old list of
tracts and you now look at the new Census data and the new mapping,
the two things are not the same, and there are questions about
what’s going to happen now with respect to the tracts. If it
shrank, does that mean that the new boundary lines are what are
relevant? What if a tract no longer exists? What if it no longer
meets the low-income community requirements? Can tracts be taken
off the list? What if there’s already been investment in those
tracts? How do we grandfather existing investment? Just drafting
language for grandfathering is so complicated because think about
it – what does that mean to grandfather? Are you
grandfathering only the dollars that have been put to work already?
Are you grandfathering the project, which might need future
infusions of cash? How will that work right? And then there’s
the flip side. Can we add tracts? If there are other areas that now
qualify as low-income communities, can the governors add tracts to
the list so that now we have more Opportunity Zone areas that can
be invested into? And you know, I can tell you that the
Treasury’s 2020-2021 priority guidance plan does include the
impact of census tract changes on the Opportunity Zone Program. And
so, they have prioritized coming out with guidance with respect to
this issue, but there are a number of nuances to these answers, and
I think that it’s taking them a while to figure out what they
want those answers to be.

Lafe Metz:  So at least since we’re a
few years into the Opportunity Zone Program, and we’ve seen all
this evolution and the different instances of guidance coming out,
and then extensions from COVID-19. What’s the overall feeling
about the program at this point? Is it felt to be working? Is there
enough investment happening? Is there good value for people to look
into Opportunity Zones? What’s your takeaway?

Lisa Starczewski:  You know the answer to
that so depends on who you ask, right? Because there are some
people that are absolutely gung-ho excited about the Opportunity
Zone Program, and there is some sense of disappointment that it
just didn’t have this enormous impact that people were hoping
it would have. But you know, I think that it’s really important
to step back and just realize a few things.

One is that we had this pandemic happen and that you really
can’t even look at the last year at all in terms of assessing
what this program is capable of. The second is that we saw that
highly politicized approach to OZ’s in March of 2018 and 2019.
And so, there was some reluctance associated because of that. And
we also just did not have enough guidance to know what we were
doing or how to do it. And so, I think there are reasons why it
hasn’t had that tremendous impact that it has the potential to
have. But I think that now we are seeing renewed excitement about
the OZ program across the board and much more of it. And I think
there’s a number of reasons for that, right? I think that the
possible capital gain increase is actually getting people talking
about this and talking about, “OK does that make it more or
less attractive?” And I think in most cases it makes it more
attractive.

One other tax change I didn’t get a chance to talk about is
that Biden might eliminate like-kind exchanges, which now are
limited to real estate, but if that goes away completely, this
becomes one of the only ways to defer capital gain, taxation, and
becomes even more important. So, we have those tax changes that are
driving a little bit of excitement and renewed interest. We have
the fact that the program will be less politicized under Biden. And
I think it will go back to being seen as a true economic
development tool with bipartisan support, and I think that’s
going to drive excitement. We’ve seen unprecedented gains in
the bull market we’ve had over the last few years. There is a
lot of money on paper out there. There are huge gains that could be
utilized in this program. We’ve been in this global pandemic
for a year as a result of which we have significant economic
fallout across our United States, right? If there was ever a need
for economic development tools, it is now. States, cities, towns,
they’re going to have to use every tool at their disposal to
incentivize recovery and growth. All of these things I think are
working together to reinvigorate the OZ program, which really leads
to my last point.

The OZ program is not a panacea that is going to, on its own,
bring relief and development to low-income communities. That’s
not what it is. That’s not what it ever was intended to be. It
doesn’t make bad investments, good investments. It doesn’t.
But it is one tool, right? It is a tool. It can be part of the
capital stack in a transaction. It could be that one more thing
that makes the project feasible. Its greatest and most impactful
use is when it’s used as part of a package that state and local
governments have put together alongside job training programs,
small business loans, streamlined regulatory processes, tax
increment financing. The more cooperation and collaboration that
exists between investors and funds and your local and state
municipalities and economic development authorities, the more
likely it is that this program is going to be used in a way that
meets its original objectives.

Lafe Metz:  Well, Lisa, it was a privilege
to talk to you. I learn more about Opportunity Zones every time we
have a chance to interact, and your knowledge of the statute and
also your practical experience are evident. And so, we’re lucky
to have you here at Buchanan. Thank you again for joining us. I
also want to thank all of our listeners for tuning in. We hope
you’ll join us for future episodes of Tax Facts,
and you can do that by subscribing to the podcast on Apple or
Google or Spotify or wherever you like to listen. If you’d like
to learn more about Buchanan and our experience in tax law and in
real estate. Please visit our website at www.bipc.com and you can also learn more
about opportunity zones at www.bpic.comopportunity-zones. Until next time
I’m Lafe Metz, and I’m here with Lisa Starczewski. And
thank you very much for tuning into Tax Facts.

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