Opportunity Zone

White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council Executive Director Scott Turner Tours Madison Area Opportunity Zones

Special thanks to Scott Turner, Executive Director of the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council for touring our Madison Region Opportunity Zones on Monday October 14th. (L to R: Scott Turner, Mayor Paul Esser, Mayor Mary O’Connor, Mayor Aaron Richardson, and Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway) Many federal agencies have been directed to look at their programs and provide additional consideration to projects that are in or would otherwise impact Opportunity Zones.

Sun Prairie Opportunity Zone Forum Held March 7th

The City of Sun Prairie hosted a Opportunity Zone Forum on Thursday, March 7 at the Hilton Garden Inn from 8:00AM to Noon.

At this event, we dived deeper into Opportunity Zones, including non-real estate ways of benefiting from OZ's, and how funds are established. We also took a look at some of the other financial tools that can be leveraged including Tax Incremental Financing (TIF) and Low Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC) for qualified OZ projects.

Copies of slides from presentation can be found.

Note that regulations and polices relating to Opportunity Zones are still a work in progress, so these presentations are current as of March 7, 2019.

Questions can be emailed to Business. A link to the recorded video of these presentations will be available soon.

Opportunity Zone Program Quick Facts:

The Opportunity Zones Program created by the federal Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 is designed to drive long-term investment to income qualified area by providing investors with certain tax incentives when they re-invest unrealized capital gains in designated Opportunity Zones.

Opportunity Zones are census tracts, recommended by governors and officially designated by the U.S Treasury Department, that are eligible to receive private investments through Opportunity Funds. Opportunity Zone designations last for 10 years.

Opportunity Funds are a new class of investment instruments certified and authorized by the U.S. Treasury Department to direct private investment into Opportunity Zones.

Opportunity Funds are authorized to invest in Opportunity Zone Property, which is defined as stock in a domestic company, interest in a domestic partnership, or tangible business property.

The Opportunity Zones Program provides tax incentives for investors to re-invest unrealized capital gains into Opportunity Funds. The incentives include:

1) Temporary deferral of capital gains that are re-invested into Opportunity Funds;

2) Investors can also reduce taxes owed on rolled-over capital gains (by 10% to 15%) if they hold their Opportunity Fund investment for at least five years; and

3) Capital gains on Opportunity Fund investments are excluded from taxable income if investments are held for at least 10 years.

It’s anticipated the Opportunity Zones Program will be fully implemented by the fourth quarter of 2018 or the first quarter of 2019.

Source: Wisconsin Economic Development Association (April 10, 2018)

Sun Prairie Included in Wisconsin's Opportunity Zone Designation

In March of 2018, Governor Scott Walker recommended the designation of 120 Opportunity Zones across 44 counties in rural, urban, and tribal areas of Wisconsin to the U.S. Treasury Department.

Wisconsin's designation includes a qualified census tract in Sun Prairie (55025011505) that is bounded by U.S. 151 to the north, Bristol Street/CTH N to the east, and Main Street to the south. The area includes part of TIF 8 in Downtown Sun Prairie, and part of TIF 11 in the Central Main Street Corridor.