美国国家公共电台 NPR How The House Tax Overhaul Bill Could Hurt Affordable Housing

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Republicans are set to unveil their tax bill compromise later today. And people who build affordable 1 housing are desperate to see what is in this bill. That's because the House version would scrap 2 a tax incentive 3 that underpins 4 about half of the affordable housing units that get built across the country. NPR's Chris Arnold reports.

CHRIS ARNOLD, BYLINE 5: Since the House version of the tax bill was first passed, housing advocates have been scared. They say that a provision in it would mean that a lot of working families - people on lower incomes and the elderly - would lose out on the chance to get a place that they could afford to live.

DIANE YENTEL: The effect would be devastating 6. It would mean a loss of around 800,000 affordable rental 7 homes over the next 10 years.

ARNOLD: Diane Yentel heads up the National Low Income Housing Coalition 8. She says for decades, there's been this bedrock funding mechanism 9 that's helped millions of affordable housing units to get built. It's called a private activity bond. And it allows banks and other companies to get a tax break if they invest in affordable housing construction. But in the House version, Yentel says this funding mechanism gets destroyed.

YENTEL: This essentially 10 eliminates nearly half of the affordable homes that can be developed or preserved throughout the country through the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program.

ARNOLD: Now, lawmakers say that they've reached a deal on the tax bill, but they're not talking about this provision publicly yet. A senior congressional aide tells NPR that the Senate version has won out on this score. That would be great, say the advocates, since it didn't have this poison pill. But other reports disagree with that and say that lawmakers still have been negotiating over these private activity bonds. So until the final language is unveiled later today, there's a lot of confusion.

BARBARA THOMPSON: The waiting is torture. So much is at stake.

ARNOLD: Barbara Thompson is the executive director of the National Council of State Housing Agencies. She's hearing that the framework for these crucial housing bonds will survive.

THOMPSON: We are cautiously optimistic.

ARNOLD: But she's also worried by reports that lawmakers have been making changes to the program that still might mean fewer of these bonds get used for affordable housing.

THOMPSON: Changes that will severely 11 limit the resources available. And we're talking about billions of dollars potentially being at stake.

ARNOLD: The reason that this system of tax credits and subsidies 12 has been so crucial is that it reduces the cost of construction, so that the developers, who are often nonprofits, can charge less money for the units, which makes them affordable. OK. So why would Republicans in the House want to throw a grenade into this system if it's been working? Scott Greenberg is an analyst 13 with the conservative-leaning Tax Foundation.

SCOTT GREENBERG: Tax exempt 14 bonds are probably a relatively 15 inefficient 16 way of subsidizing projects meant to benefit the public.

ARNOLD: Basically, Greenberg's saying that you could get more bang for your buck 17 subsidizing affordable housing in other ways. So he's been in favor of scrapping 18 this tax break. Chris Mayer is a housing economist 19 with Columbia Business School. He hopes that Congress does not scrap these housing subsidies because he says if it does, he worries...

CHRISTOPHER MAYER: We're not going to replace them with a more efficient program. And that means - what we're doing on that is cutting the subsidies for low-income people. We're making it more expensive for them to live. We end up with more people being homeless. And we end up with more families struggling in this country.

ARNOLD: Yentel says this affordable housing program has had bipartisan support for decades. Liberals get the housing that they want built. Corporations get tax credits. It creates public-private partnerships 20. So she's hoping that all of that will help keep the entire program intact when we see the compromise-tax-bill language later today. Chris Arnold, NPR News.

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