It was supposed to be an economic lifeline for the nation’s poorest zip codes. Instead, critics say, it’s been a tax break for rich investors funding luxury sky-rise apartments, a hemp farm in the Virgin Islands, even a gold vault in Wyoming.
“Opportunity zones,” a program established in the GOP’s 2017 tax overhaul and championed by Republicans and Democrats, is quickly becoming a flash point in a new tax rewrite.
During a meeting last month to kick off negotiations on extending the 2017 tax cuts, House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith, praised the opportunity zone program, which he said had provided $50 billion in investments “to revitalize the poorest neighborhoods in the country.”