Republicans look to ax tax credit that Reagan embraced and Trump sought

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A popular historic preservation tax credit would be eliminated under the Republican tax plan, enraging preservationists | McClatchy Washington Bureau


Republicans look to ax tax credit that Reagan embraced and Trump sought
By Lesley Clark

November 07, 2017 5:47 PM
WASHINGTON


Ronald Reagan put the historic tax credit into the U.S. tax code. Donald Trump’s company tried to use it.

Now Republicans are fighting to get rid of it.

Once crumbling reminders of the past, nearly a dozen glitzy Art Deco hotels along Miami Beach have benefited from the credit, which could be wiped out in the Republican tax bill. Well-known landmarks throughout America have also taken advantage of the break, from San Francisco’s famed Ferry Building to Asheville, North Carolina’s Grove Arcade and a horse barn at the Biltmore Estate.

It’s a tax credit that’s been used for 40 years to help spark the rebirth of old, historically significant buildings as well as often neglected communities. At one point The Trump Organization applied for the federal historic preservation tax credit for its Washington hotel.

Now, history buffs, developers and preservationists nationwide are banding together in hopes of fending off the push to end the tax credit.

And they’re invoking the Republicans’ most enduring modern historic figure, Reagan, who signed legislation making the provision a permanent part of the tax code in 1986.


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