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Senate Bill Launches Another Attack on REIT Tax Exemptions

WASHINGTON, DC—A new bill introduced in the Senate could limit how prison REITs operate.

By Erika Morphy | erikamorphy | | Updated on July 19, 2016
The Capitol The Capitol

WASHINGTON, DC—Last week, Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., introduced legislation that would limit the ability of private companies that operate prisons to take advantage of special tax rules for REITs.  To be sure, there are a very small number of such entities, namely the Corrections Corp. of America, based in Nashville, TN and the Boca Raton, FL-based Geo Group. Also, as it happens, a loophole to the legislation could offer these companies a workaround, as one analyst noted.

Still, though, for REIT and commercial real estate industry the proposed legislation is part of a worrisome pattern: lately, it seems, Congress has been nibbling away at REITs’ tax exemptions that have been permitted for years under the US corporate tax code.

 “Decades ago, when the REIT format was first introduced the idea was to give small investors the same tax-advantages they would get from direct investments in real estate but without the burden of management and operations,”  tax expert Robert Willens of Robert Willens LLC in New York City told GlobeSt.com.

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