Overview
Honigman’s Economic Development Incentives (EDI) Practice Group has extensive experience and success identifying and obtaining approvals for a wide variety of economic incentives to minimize the cost of, and increase capital to, development and business location and relocation projects. We assist clients by identifying available programs, including tax abatements, brownfield plans and tax credits, planning and structuring the optimal blend of incentives to maximize economic benefits and negotiating the best possible agreement with the appropriate federal, state, and local officials.
Incentives packages increasingly include tax and non-tax incentives, allowing the EDI Practice Group members to create and provide value creatively and on a cost-effective basis.
For clients pursuing a new project, location, or expansion, we help identify available programs and plan the right mix to maximize benefit. We negotiate the best-possible deal with the appropriate state and local officials and monitor the outcome to ensure the benefits are properly received.
Our attorneys focusing on economic development incentives also assist organizations in identifying and securing tax breaks or tax benefits not necessarily predicated upon a new project or investment. We can quickly determine if a business’s existing property or operations are eligible for a program that previously may have been overlooked. We can also facilitate the sale of tax credits from those unable to use them to their full advantage.
Representative programs that our Economic Development Incentives practice attorneys have used to assist clients include:
- Redevelopment incentives – tax abatements; tax increment financing (TIF) including brownfield TIF, downtown development authority (DDA) and other local development finance authorities; state and federal historic rehabilitation tax credits; , land assemblage, infrastructure development, and other programs; and federal and state highway programs
- Business location/investment incentives –personal property tax exemptions, new markets tax credits, opportunity zone benefits, venture capital credits, and Michigan Strategic Fund (MSF) grants and loans
- Manufacturing and high-tech incentives – industrial facilities property tax abatement, smart zone TIF, start-up business credit, and alternative energy credits
- Special zones and districts – Renaissance Zones, tool and die Recovery Zones, Foreign Trade Zones, and Port Authorities
- Housing-related tax incentives – Low-Income Housing Tax Credits, Neighborhood Enterprise Zones, and federal mortgage guarantees
- Pollution-control incentives – pollution-control facilities property and sales tax exemptions, Small Business Pollution Prevention Loans, scrap-tire cleanup grants, and brownfield TIF
- Employment-related incentives – federal welfare-to-work and Work Opportunity Tax Credits, job training grants, New Employment Credit, and youth apprenticeship tax credit
- Other grants – Community Development Block Grants, site improvement grants, and freight infrastructure grants
- Below-market rate financing – Small Business Administration loans, tax-exempt industrial development revenue bonds, broadband authority loans, and state housing development authorities loans