An Evaluation of the Impact and Potential of Opportunity Zones

Daniel Marcin
Government National Mortgage Association

The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not represent the official positions or policies of the Office of Policy Development and Research, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or the U.S. government.

Opportunity Zones (OZs) are the latest federal place-based tax initiative, created by Congress with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.

The essence of OZs is that investors with capital gains can defer taxes on them by reinvesting those gains into business or property in designated low-income census tracts, with the possibility of paying zero federal income tax on any additional capital gains realized from the new investment.