What You Need to Know About Opportunity Zones, Aimed to Boost Investment in Places of Need - Tampa Bay Business Journal

Lisa Starczewski and Bill Conaboy, co-chairs of the firm's Opportunity Zones team, recently delivered a detailed briefing about Opportunity Zones for the Tampa Bay Business Journal. Read about their deep insight in "What You Need to Know About Opportunity Zones, Aimed to Boost Investment in Places of Need." Lisa is shareholder in the firm's Tax section and Bill is counsel in the Healthcare section. Rhea law, chair of the firm's Florida offices, also commented.

Here are some of their comments:

"The whole idea of this is to tap into money that normally wouldn’t see this kind of investment," Starczewski said. "There is $2 trillion in unrealized capital gains. This is what it is aimed at and that is money sitting and unrealized." 

"They made it very clear that this can be a long term hold and still qualify on gain exclusion," Starczewski said. "They also answered some simpler questions like, can a Qualified Opportunity Fund be an LLC? Yes, they can, and that was the right answer and while it was just a clarification, it was nice to know so people didn’t feel like they had to create a limited partnership or corporation."

"Eligible census tracts were based on census data that’s a decade old," said Buchanan’s Bill Conaboy. "A lot of these zones, while financially distressed have come a long way in 10 years and it’s not just a chunk of unappealing tracts of land." 

"It’s an interesting dichotomy," said Rhea Law. "Yes, our economy is strong, but our local governments do not have the funding that they had previously because their tax receipts are limited by the reduction in ad valorem taxation that they get."