Congress Makes Opportunity Zones Permanent

 

Opportunity Zones are now a permanent part of the U.S. tax code. EIG launched in 2015 with an ambitious goal: to revolutionize the way federal policy supports investment and growth in distressed communities.  The idea for Opportunity Zones — first laid out in a white paper coauthored by Kevin Hassett and Jared Bernstein — became EIG’s flagship initiative and was soon enacted in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. In the years since, Opportunity Zones have driven more private investment to more low-income communities — and delivered greater economic impact — than any federal initiative of its kind over such a short period. Now, with the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Opportunity Zones have gone from a successful policy experiment to a permanent feature of the federal economic development toolkit.   But the OBBBA does more than simply make the OZ incentive permanent: it incorporates a suite of EIG’s recommendations to enhance the policy’s simplicity, certainty, targeting, and transparency, laying a strong foundation for the decades ahead. This legislative milestone marks the culmination of years of work to expand and strengthen the place-based policy toolkit in America. EIG is immensely grateful to the dedicated network of practitioners throughout the country whose insights have shaped our work, and to the lawmakers in Congress whose leadership made this day possible. — John Lettieri, President and CEO, Economic Innovation Group

Read EIG's OZ 2.0 Legislative Analysis

Get Engaged In the months ahead, EIG will be working closely with state and local leaders as they prepare for the next round of OZ designations and develop their implementation strategies. And our OZ Coalition will be deeply engaged in the IRS rulemaking process, offering technical recommendations to ensure smooth and successful implementation of OZ 2.0. For more information on these activities, please contact Catherine Lyons, Director of Policy and Coalitions, at catherine@eig.org.

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