Renewal Community Empowerment Zone

The Empowerment Zone tax incentives and the Renewal Community tax incentives, are incentives to encourage businesses to open, expand, and to hire local residents who both live and work in an empowerment zone. The incentives include employment credits, a 0% tax on capital gains, increased tax deductions on equipment, accelerated real property depreciation, and other incentives. The EZ/RC tax incentives were provided as a tool for the designees to stimulate job creation and retention and business investment in buildings and equipment.  The interagency partnership between HUD and IRS is essential because HUD has the economic development expertise and IRS has the tax expertise.

The residents, businesses and community organizations in the Lawrence Renewal Community Zone (RC) have long faced difficult economic challenges.  The challenges are being addresses by development strategies:

• Reducing the tax rates within the RC to include the industrially-zoned areas
• Increasing local services
• Implementing crime reduction strategies
• Increasing involvement by community partners, including
  • The Lawrence Gateway Initiative
  • The Lawrence Small Business Center
  • Small Business Revolving Loan Fund
  • The Lawrence Façade Improvement Program
  • Massachusetts Development Finance Agency
  • Massachusetts Community Development Finance Corporation

• Employee performs substantially all of the services for you within an empowerment zone in your trade or business
• Employee’s main home is within the empowerment zone for services performed in the zone

• Empowerment Zone Employment  Credit (EZ Wage Credit). IRS Tax Form 8844.
• Renewal Community Employment Credit (RC Wage Credit). IRS Tax Form 8844.
• Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC). IRS Tax Forms 5884 and 8850.
• Welfare to Work (WtW) Credit. IRS Tax Forms 5884, 8850, and 8861.
• Indian Employment Tax Credit. IRS Tax Form 8845.

• Publication 954 is available at the following
  website: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-prior/p954–2004.pdf

• To determine if a new hire is within the zone go to the following website and enter their address.
• The website address is:  http://egis.hud.gov or www.hud.gov/crlocator
• If the EZ/RC Locator is down direct your questions to either, egis@hud.gov or call 877-483-8282, option 3.