Latest news with #TaxCredit
Yahoo
03-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Redevelopment of Providence ‘Superman' building hinges on changing state tax credit program
The Superman building in downtown Providence has sat empty since 2013. State legislation headed to the Rhode Island Senate Wednesday would allow the owner to qualify for a sales tax waiver on construction materials. (Photo by Alexander Castro/Rhode Island Current) Compared with the $270 million-plus price tag to redevelop downtown Providence's most iconic skyscraper, a $4.6 million discount sounds inconsequential. Yet developers and city leaders championing the long-awaited rebirth of the vacant 'Superman' building as a mixed-income apartment building insist the small sales tax savings for construction materials is the 'missing piece' of the complex financing puzzle for the project. A state sales tax waiver would add to a bounty of public incentives already offered to help owner High Rock Development close financing gaps on the complex and increasingly costly project, which has risen by at least $50 million in the last three years. Proponents appear to have persuaded at least one chamber of the Rhode Island General Assembly, with the Senate Committee on Finance on Monday advancing legislation to the floor intended to support the request. The unanimous committee vote came within minutes, without discussion. The full Senate is scheduled to vote Wednesday afternoon on the legislation sponsored by Sen. Jake Bissaillon, a Providence Democrat. Senate President Valarie Lawson has already signaled support, touting its promotion of 'robust housing development across our state' in an emailed statement. Across the rotunda in the House, a companion bill by fellow Providence Democrat Raymond Hull remains held for further study following an initial April 3 hearing. But House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi indicated the proposed amendment to the state's Rebuild Rhode Island Tax Credit program is still on the table. 'This issue, should it be addressed, will likely be part of the budget discussions,' Shekarchi said in a statement. The legislation itself does not mention the 26-story Industrial National Bank Building by name, nor its location at 111 Westminster St. The single paragraph addition tweaks a 2016 law to specify that the $15 million per-project cap on an existing state tax credit program does not apply to exemptions on sales and use taxes. But the grand plan to revitalize the long vacant skyscraper with 285 rental units, 20% of which would be income-restricted, is the most obvious — and so far the only — example of a development project that meets the requirements set out in the legislation. Supporters for the proposal have made it clear that the Rebuild Rhode Island tax credit change is specifically meant to help Superman get off the ground. 'This legislation, together with existing programs at the local, state, and federal level, is the last piece of the puzzle towards getting this project back on the track to completion as was contemplated in 2022,' Nicholas Hemond, a lobbyist for High Rock, wrote in a letter to lawmakers. High Rock through a subsidiary known as High Rock Westminster bought the Art Deco building in 2008, according to city tax records. This legislation, together with existing programs at the local, state, and federal level, is the last piece of the puzzle towards getting this project back on the track to completion as was contemplated in 2022 – Nicholas Hemond, lobbyist for High Rock Development LLC, owner of the Superman building in downtown Providence His plea echoes the promises High Rock made to state and city lawmakers in 2022, securing $65 million worth of public financing, including $26 million from the state and $15 million from the city to cover an estimated $220 million redevelopment cost. But three years later, the former bank building still sits empty, though dozens of demolition, mechanical and electrical permits have been pulled, according to the city permit portal. Hemond in his letter cited inflationary pressures hiking costs for construction, which now stand at $270 million according to a fee calculation the owner submitted to the city in December 2024. High Rock has kicked in more cash, increasing its initial equity from $21 million to $52 million to cover initial construction, permit and architectural fees, and making sure the building is secured, Hemond wrote. Letting the property also apply for an exemption on sales taxes on construction materials, despite already receiving $15 million in Rebuild Rhode Island tax credits, would 'go a long way' to helping the project come to fruition, Hemond wrote. Providence Mayor Brett Smiley also backed the request, stressing the importance of reviving the vacant building for the city, and the state. And waiving the credit cap for sales tax exemptions, providing Rhode Island Commerce approves an application, doesn't require dipping into state coffers, a key concern of lawmakers amid a projected $185 million budget deficit. 'If this project were to never happen, the state wouldn't get that sales tax revenue anyway,' Smiley told lawmakers during the May 20 committee hearing on the bill. The proposal also received written support from The Providence Foundation, BuildRI, Rhode Island Commerce and the local chapter of the Laborers' International Union of North America. However, Neena Savage, state tax administrator, called for clarity in definitions of 'affordable housing' and 'workforce housing' in a letter to lawmakers. Savage also cautioned that the proposal may have 'unintended consequences, including fiscal impacts and uncertainties,' if the bill does not restrict sales and use tax exemptions to no more than 25% of total project costs, and keep tabs on total available funding in the state program. Changes unveiled just before the Senate Committee vote Monday afternoon address Savage's second concern, while also requiring that purchases for which sales taxes are waived must be made by June 30, 2028. Senate Finance Chairman Lou DiPalma in an interview said the deadline aims to protect taxpayers, noting the multiple delays that have plagued the Superman redevelopment. 'The longer this goes on, the higher the cost,' DiPalma, a Middletown Democrat said. 'We need to hold them accountable for taxpayer money.' Savage was not available to comment on the amended legislation. Bill Fischer, a spokesperson for High Rock, did not respond to inquiries for comment about the recent changes to the bill. Asked for details about the timing of the proposal, and other incentives needed to finish raising the money for the project, Fischer referred back to Hemond's written testimony to lawmakers. The lack of transparency was worrisome to Rep. David Morales, a Providence Democrat who opposed the original stack of public financing for the project in 2022. Morales was not as bothered by the sales tax exemption, noting it was not a direct taxpayer contribution. But he remained skeptical of the developer's promise to finally complete the project with this additional tax break. 'I am concerned this will not be the last time they come to us to ask for public subsidies,' Morales said in an interview. 'It still remains unclear whether this subsidy will get them off the ground.' He continued, 'For a project of this size, I'd like to think more homework would have been done ahead of time.' The Superman skyscraper got its nickname due to its resemblance to The Daily Planet newspaper building where Clark Kent worked in the 1950s TV show. The property has sat vacant since 2013, when Bank of America left. The property overlooking Kennedy Plaza was valued at $13.5 million in 2025, down $500,000 from the prior year's assessment, according to the city assessment database. A 30-year tax deal inked between the developer and the city of Providence in 2022 would save the developer $29.4 million in city property taxes over the next 30 years if the development is completed. The payment schedule assumes the regular payment of $500,000 in annual property taxes — undiscounted — through 2026, with discounts beginning in 2026 as the property value increases alongside its redevelopment. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
New budget deal to put money in pockets of working families in CNY
SYRACUSE, N.Y. (WSYR-TV) — Governor Kathy Hochul is celebrating a 2026 New York State Budget deal that will put thousands of dollars back into the pockets of Central New York families. According to Hochul, the first step is expanding New York's Child Tax Credit. This will include giving 67,000 families in Central New York an annual tax credit of up to $1,000 per child under the age of four, and up to $500 per child from four through 16. This is the largest expansion of New York's child tax credit in history. Hochul is also planning to cut taxes for more than 80% of all tax filers in Central New York and send the state's first-ever inflation refund checks. 'The cost of living is too damn high for Central New York families, so I promised to put more money in your pockets – and we got it done,' said Governor Hochul. 'Putting thousands of dollars back in the pockets of families means helping Central New Yorkers afford the rising costs of groceries, raising kids, and just enjoying life. When I said your family is my fight, I meant it – and I'll never stop fighting for you.' Hochul's goal is to help families of all sizes and income levels across Central New York. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
30-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
These DWP claimants urged to act in days or lose up to £200 a month
Benefit claimants are being urged to take action ahead of a major deadline coming in April this year. The Department for Work and Pensions ( DWP ) is currently working to axe six legacy benefits and move everyone onto Universal Credit, reports MirrorOnline. These benefits are: Working Tax Credit, Child Tax Credit, Income-based Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA), Income support, Housing Benefit, and Income related Employment Support Allowance (ESA). READ MORE: State pensioners born before 1953 to miss out on £7,561 from next month Get breaking news on BirminghamLive WhatsApp, click the link to join The first legacy benefit to be axed is Tax Credits which will be stopped for good in April this year. Those in receipt are being moved over through its Managed Migration programme. As part of the process, households claiming legacy benefits are being issued letters called "migration notices" through the post. Under the plan, all Tax Credit claimants should have been given a Migration Notice by the end of last year. Once you have been sent a managed migration notice, you have three months to claim Universal Credit. If you miss this deadline, your benefits will be halted. Explaining how much Tax Credits are worth, the government website stated: "How much you get depends on things like your circumstances and your income. "The basic amount is up to £2,435 a year." That works out to £202 a month. If you have not yet acted or have not received a letter, then you do not have much time left to make a claim, as you will not receive Tax Credit payments from April. Once you've made a claim for Universal Credit, it usually takes up to five weeks for your first Universal Credit payment to arrive. However, it is important to note that once you have made an application for Universal Credit, your Tax Credit payments will stop. According to the latest DWP figures, 355,940 individuals who were sent migration notices did not claim Universal Credit and had their legacy benefit claims closed. The DWP website warned: "Tax Credits are closing on 5 April 2025, and customers must respond to their migration notices by their deadline date to continue to receive financial support from the Government." If you claim Universal Credit by the deadline or within one month of the deadline, then you may get an extra payment - which is called a transitional element. This is intended to ensure that you are not worse off on Universal Credit compared to Tax Credits, at the point of transfer, with circumstances unchanged. This amount depends on your current Tax Credits award being as accurate as possible, and HMRC may contact some claimants directly to carry out a "pre-migration check". The transitional protection lasts until there is no difference between the amount awarded under Universal Credit and what you received before under legacy benefits. The DWP is working to send migration notices to all those claiming legacy benefits by the end of this year. This means hundreds of thousands of managed migration notices will be sent over the next nine months. The benefits department is working to completely phase out all legacy benefits by the end of March 2026.
Yahoo
13-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Lawmakers should not give Oklahoma's private school subsidy program a blank check
(Photo by) Oklahoma lawmakers have invested hundreds of millions of dollars into creating a private school voucher program. But instead of calling the program what it really is, our legislators have attempted to obfuscate what they're doing when helping subsidize the private school education of wealthy families. While other states call a spade a spade, our lawmakers have decided to call their voucher-like initiative a Parental Choice 'Tax Credit' program. In reality, our state is following the path of states like Ohio, which spent almost $1 billion dollars in 2024, implementing subsidies for private, mostly religious, schools under the guise of expanded school choice. The Ohio voucher program has produced declines in student learning that would have once been seen as unthinkable. Oklahoma is now in danger of expanding the two most destructive parts of school choice through an effort to create the first publicly funded religious charter school in the country, and by attempting to remove the spending cap on our voucher-like program. The fight to open St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School now faces the scrutiny of the U.S. Supreme Court. As The New York Times reports, 'The widely watched case out of Oklahoma could transform the line between church and state in education.' In addition to defending the barriers between church and state, we should also ask what the effect would be on student learning when the state subsidizes instruction of math and other subjects in ways that are intertwined with religious teachings. But equally alarming is state Sen. Julie Daniels' push through Senate Bill 229 to remove the Parental Choice Tax Credit program's spending caps, further rewarding the wealthy. When private school tax credits were authorized in 2023, a $150 million cap was established for the first year. The cap was raised to $200 million in the second year and $250 million in the third year. As Oklahoma Watch's Ruby Topalian explained, private schools increased tuition, which reduced the benefits for low-income families. If we were to remove the spending cap, that would not be good news for the state's already lagging educational outcomes. Research has shown that vouchers, even those called tax credits, are even more chaotic when they follow national patterns. They encourage the creation of failing private schools. In other states, many more low-income students have been initially admitted and then pushed out of private schools, creating confusion for their families and increasing budget problems for public schools. Josh Cowen's The Privateers: How Billionaires Created a Culture War and Sold School Vouchers writes about how this funding has caused extreme disruption for public schools and first-time voucher and tax credit users who are not retained in private schools. Cowen writes that the think tanks who helped launch the 1950s origins of the pro-voucher movement weren't particularly concerned about school improvement. They used the movement as a weapon against school integration and to attempt to weaken labor unions. And today's voucher sponsors use them to push an anti-Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion agenda. Cowen acknowledged that 'a few tiny studies from the late 1990s and early 2000's showed small gains in test scores for voucher users, [but] since 2013 the record has been dismal. Over the last decade, the learning loss for the kids who used vouchers to leave public schools had test score drops in some states that were comparable to the academic losses suffered by New Orleans kids after Hurricane Katrina. In other states, those students' academic declines were about as large as what COVID-19 did to student learning. In Louisiana and Ohio, harmful voucher effects were almost twice as bad as the pandemic's academic impact. His research showed that vouchers mostly pay for the education of children already enrolled in private schools, and suck money from public schools. And, as Cowen documents, in Wisconsin, for instance, 40% of private schools have opened and closed since their voucher program grew. And, 'about 20 percent of kids left their voucher school every year and most went into a public school.' This indicates that new, smaller voucher and tax credit programs may not, at first, cause dramatic harm. But once they are scaled up, students who attend private schools for the first time suffer huge learning losses, and cause disruption in the public schools they left and were then pushed back into. Given the track record in other states, the last thing our state needs to do is lift the spending cap and give the program a blank check. We should be prioritizing shifting resources from subsidizing the affluent to funding public schools that serve every student who walks through the door regardless of socio-economic status. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
