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Welcome to the Opportunity Zones Working Group

Who We Are

The Opportunity Zones (OZ) Working Group was founded by Novogradac & Company LLP in 2017 during the legislative phase of tax reform for the express purpose of identifying and addressing technical and administrative issues that arise under the federal Opportunity Zones incentive. Its members primarily include investors, syndicators, lenders, community development entities (CDEs), community development financial institutions (CDFIs), for-profit and nonprofit developers, consultants, law firms and other community development professionals who work together to suggest consensus solutions to technical Opportunity Zones incentive issues and provide recommendations to make the Opportunity Zones incentive more efficient in delivering benefits to low-income communities.

What We Do

Established to provide a platform for community development industry participants who wished to be on the leading edge of this new community development incentive, the OZ Working Group encourages and facilitates the collaboration of industry professionals in their efforts to resolve technical and administrative incentive issues. Each month, members of the group participate in a conference call, discuss issues of concern and– based on those discussions–provide comments and suggestions that are submitted in writing to the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service, the Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund, members of Congress and other federal and state agencies.

Benefits of Membership

Membership in the OZ Working Group provides:

• Access to a platform where members can collaborate on similar opportunities and issues to better understand how they can implement the incentive .
• Access to Novogradac & Company legislative and economic analysis of key issues in the Opportunity Zones incentive.
• The opportunity to keep abreast of emerging issues and provide input for shaping proposed rulemaking so that the rules and markets work well together.
• The ability to cost share in resolving similar issues more efficiently as a group rather than having to pay for them individually.
• The chance to participate directly but have ideas and suggestions included anonymously in letters submitted to governmental agencies.
• Access to Novogradac & Company’s congressional update on issues as they happen.

Priority Issues

The OZ Working Group’s priority issues include:

• Discovering how to best use the incentive with various business models.
• Discovering how best to pair the OZ incentive with various tax credits.
• Making requests for guidance and providing recommendations around statutory requirements and regulations.

Visit www.opportunityzonesresourcecenter.com for more information or contact [email protected]. For membership details contact [email protected].