Student Corner: North Carolina's Opportunity Zones Certified

Source: public.nccommerce.com/oz/ The Opportunity Zone (OZ) program was created as a part of the federal Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. An overview of the program previously posted on the CED blog can be found here. On May 18, 2018 the US Secretary of Treasury certified 252 census tracts in North Carolina as OZs. The designation of OZs allows investors to gain tax benefits through investment in business activities – including real estate – in the certified zones. North Carolina’s OZ nomination process was guided by the North Carolina Department of Commerce using quantitative data and input from local communities. This blog post will provide a brief overview of the designated OZs. Future posts will discuss specific zones and potential development strategies for communities to take advantage of their local Zone designations. Opportunity Zone qualifications were based on American Community Survey (ACS) 2015 5-Year data, so all analysis in this post uses ACS 2015 5-Year where applicable. Qualified Tracts To be eligible for OZ designation, a census tract must be a low-income tract under the New Markets Tax Credit criteria or through the Contiguous Tract rule created by the OZ program. The Contiguous Tract rule allows for non-low-income census tracts to be designated as an OZ as long as the tract’s median family income “does not exceed 125 percent of the low-income community with which the tract is contiguous” (Sec. 1400Z). Up to five percent of a state’s OZs can be designated through the Contiguous Tract rule. The Contiguous Tract rule allows states to take a district approach if there [...]