Annual Report on Preservation Tax Incentives Affirms: Preservation Pays

The National Park Service (NPS) has released its Annual Report on the Economic Impact of the Federal Historic Tax Credit for FY (Federal fiscal year)2017. As in past years, the report demonstates with hard, cold numbers that the rehabilitation of historic income-producing buildings has a significant positive economic impact on national, state, and local economies.  The data tracks the economic impact of historic building rehab projects where owners/developers have taken advantage of the Federal Historic Tax Credit (HTC) incentive program. Briefly, the HTC incentive provides for a 20% credit on federal income tax obligation following the rehabilitation of buildings listed in the National Register of Historic Places and where the work has been "certified" as meeting the US Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Rehabilitation (Standards). 

Produced each year by the Rutgers University Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, the report calculated that in Federal Fiscal Year 2017 (10/1/2016 to 9/30/2018) nationwide historic rehabilitation work generated $6.5 Billion in expenditures.  The report also calculates the number of jobs produced  (107 thousand), the income generated from wages ($4.6 B), production output ($12.2 B), and taxes produced for federal, state, and local governments ($1.7 B). 

In addition to breaking the numbers down by economic sector, the report also generates data of the economic impact for each state. For Washington, the report indicates that $53.9 M rehab expenditures were made in FFY 2017 and employing 862 persons, generating $38.6 M in income, $103.4 M in economic output, plus $2.9 M and $1.9 M in local and state taxes respectively.   

Finally, each year the report features case studies profiling the economic impact of selected rehab projects. This years report includes case studies of the rehab of a downtown office building in Des Moines, the Owyhee Hotel in Boise, a commercial building in Florence, SC., and a school in Houma, Louisiana. 

A pdf of the report is available from the NPS website at this link: http://www.nps.gov/tps/tax-incentives.htm.

Information about the HTC incentive program can be found on DAHP's website at this address: https://dahp.wa.gov/tax-credits.  Specific questions about preservation tax incentive programs and the rehab Standards can be directed to DAHP's Historical Architect Nicholas Vann at Nicholas.Vann@dahp.wa.gov or 360-586-3079.