Background on State Historic Preservation Tax Credits
Although each incentive program is unique, the thirty programs offer credit against state tax liability for the qualified rehabilitation of a qualifying historic building. Importantly, 25 states offer a tax credit for the rehabilitation of owner-occupied residences, unlike the federal program.
In March 2009, Governor Beebe signed into law the Arkansas Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit bill which offers a 25% credit for qualified rehab costs of both income-producing and owner-occupied properties.
In 2008, the following legislatures altered their program:
Colorado extended their 20% tax credit program for another 10 years (in "positive economic" years);
Georgia increased the program’s per-project cap (up from $5,000 per building) to $100,000 per residential project and $300,000 per commercial project. They also raised the tax credit to 25 % (up from 10 percent for residential and 20 percent for commercial rehabilitation projects);
Maine increased the program’s cap to $5 million per project (up from $100,000), allowed the state credit to be bifurcated from the federal credit, and offered a 30 percent credit for those projects that create affordable housing;
Michigan put in place for 5 years an incentive program capped at $8 million in 2009, increasing $1 million annually to $12 million in 2013. Twenty-five percent of the funding is to be set aside for projects that have $1 million or less in expenditures and a major rehabilitation project (above the cap) is to be allowed in 2009 and two such projects in each subsequent year;
Ohio after a monetary cap was placed on a two-year pilot tax credit program, the state created a new tax credit for 2010 and 2011 (capped at $60 million per year and $5 million per-project) with a set-aside for projects that had applied under the initial pilot;
Rhode Island placed a moratorium on accepting new applications while it processes the current 82 tax credit projects with qualified rehabilitation expenditures of slightly over a billion dollars.
