OKLAHOMA CITY – The House of Representatives maintained a modified affordable housing tax credit program by passing House Bill 2760 on Thursday.
To help balance the $1.4 billion budget hole projected for Fiscal Year 2021, a number of areas of state spending were modified. In HB 2760, the State Affordable Housing Tax Credit was maintained by reducing the limit on new 10-year tax credits issued to qualified homebuilders from $4 million a year to $2 million a year, saving the state $110 million over the next decade.
“When you’re facing a 17% budget hole, difficult decisions get made that can be reevaluated when revenues return. This is one of those cases,” said House Appropriations and Budget Vice Chairman Kyle Hilbert, R-Bristow. “This program will be able to maintain operations under a reduced credit amount until it can be reevaluated when state revenues rebound.” The state Incentive Evaluation Commission recommended the credit be modified after finding it had not yet produced a positive return on investment for the state.
“Legislators had to decide how to fund core services in a pandemic, and we did that by making modifications such as this one,” Hilbert said. “I recognize this is a topic that will need to continue to be discussed, and I thank my colleagues for their honest debate on this bill. I look forward to working with both sides of the aisle to examine better ways to assist impoverished communities than giving tax credits to developers.”
HB 2760 was part of the FY 2021 budget agreement and it now heads to the Senate.
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