Opportunity Zones
Missed Opportunity: Flimsy Paper Touts Flawed Program
August 25, 2020 • By .ITEP Staff, Amy Hanauer, Lorena Roque
Republicans continue to tout Opportunity Zones as their main vehicle to assist poor people, most recently with a deeply flawed report from President Trump’s White House Council of Economic Advisors and a mention from Donald Trump Jr. in his opening night convention speech. The report purports to compare—as a way of cutting poverty—tax breaks for investors vs food, cash or health insurance coverage for struggling families.
Trends We’re Watching in 2020
February 12, 2020 • By .ITEP Staff
State lawmakers have plenty to keep them busy on the tax policy front in 2020. Encouraging trends we’re watching this year include opportunities to enact and enhance refundable tax credits and increase the tax contributions of high-income households, each of which would improve tax equity and help to reduce income inequality.
New ITEP Reports Call for the Repeal of Opportunity Zones and Urge States to Decouple
December 12, 2019 • By Lorena Roque
Two new ITEP reports lay bare the irreparable flaws of the federal Opportunity Zones program, created by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act signed into law by President Trump in 2017.
Opportunity Zones Bolster Investors’ Bottom Lines Rather than Economic or Racial Equity
December 12, 2019 • By Lorena Roque
This policy brief provides an overview of how opportunity zones are designed and highlights some of the flaws of the policy, including the detrimental impact opportunity zones have on communities of color.
States Should Decouple from Costly Federal Opportunity Zones and Reject Look-Alike Programs
December 12, 2019 • By .ITEP Staff
Post enactment of TCJA, lawmakers in most states needed to decide how to respond to the creation of this new program. Given the shortcomings of the federal Opportunity Zones program and its added potential costs to states, the most prudent course of action is three-pronged: States should move quickly to decouple; states should reject look-alike programs; and lawmakers should make investments directly into economically distressed areas.
Opportunity Zones Have Nothing to Do with Reparations, Except …
August 2, 2019 • By Jenice Robinson
Among other things, this blog highlights how federal, state and local policies systematically work to reinforce the racial wealth gap by, for example, using the tax code to redistribute the nation’s wealth to billionaire developers and keeping low-income people of color in a perpetual cycle of debt through fines and fees to fund local governments. Opportunity zones and the top-heavy 2017 tax law are emblematic of a long history of policymaking that advantages wealthy white families.
So-Called Opportunity Zones Provide Opportunity for Whom?
April 23, 2019 • By ITEP Staff
In early April, a diverse but mostly black crowd took to the streets in the Shaw neighborhood of Washington D.C. to protest T-Mobile’s decision to order Metro PCS to cease playing gogo music. This tale is a shining example of why economic investment—especially taxpayer-incentivized investment—in underserved communities is fraught with controversy. Who ultimately benefits after developers pour millions of dollars into these communities? And, as this controversy reveals, are the usually black and brown denizens of these neighborhoods and businesses that may have catered to them no longer welcome once economic development reaches a critical mass?
How Opportunity Zones Benefit Investors and Promote Displacement
August 10, 2018 • By .ITEP Staff
The idea behind the new tax break is to provide an incentive for wealthy individuals to invest in the economies of struggling communities. Despite alleged intentions, it appears opportunity zones are turning into yet another windfall for wealthy investors and may encourage displacement of people in low-income areas, working against the provision’s intended goal.
Institute on Taxation
and Economic Policy
ITEP is a non-profit, non-partisan tax policy organization. We conduct rigorous analyses of tax and economic proposals and provide data-driven recommendations to shape equitable and sustainable tax systems.
Subscribe to ITEP Emails
Tax research and policy news in your inbox.
Promote Fair Tax Policy
Your gift to ITEP promotes tax justice. With your help, we do research that supports taxing millionaires and billionaires, taxing big corporations and raising revenue for the things our people, our communities and our planet need.
Together, we can create a country with more economic justice, more racial justice, more climate justice… and more tax justice.