House Housing Champions Release Housing Credit Expansion Legislation
Today, House Ways and Means Committee member Representative Darin LaHood (R-IL) introduced the Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act (AHCIA) of 2025, to expand and strengthen the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (Housing Credit). LaHood is joined by 118 original cosponsors — split evenly between Republicans and Democrats — including co-leads Representatives Suzan DelBene (D-WA), Claudia Tenney (R-NY), Don Beyer (D-VA), Randy Feenstra (R-IA), and Jimmy Panetta (D-CA). This impressive number of cosponsors right out of the gate is indicative of the strong bipartisan support for using the Housing Credit to meet our nation’s affordable rental housing supply needs and sends an important message just as Congress is working on major tax legislation expected to be considered using the budget reconciliation process.
The bill would increase Housing Credit authority for the 9 percent Housing Credit program by reinstating the 12.5 percent cap increase and further expanding authority by 50 percent; lower the bond financing threshold for 4 percent Housing Credit developments (aka the 50 percent test) to 25 percent; allow basis boosts for properties serving extremely low-income households, for developments in rural and Native American areas, and for 4 percent Housing Credit properties that need the basis boost for financial feasibility at the discretion of the state agency. It also would make numerous common sense programmatic improvements to streamline Housing Credit administration, simplify complex compliance rules, and further augment the program’s impact on increasing rental housing supply. The bill is mostly identical to the AHCIA as introduced in the previous Congress: Other than the addition of a non-binding “Sense of Congress” provision discouraging the use of discriminatory land use policies, the only changes since the prior bill are updates to reflect inflation and other minor technical adjustments. The ACTION Campaign, which NCSHA co-chairs with Enterprise Community Partners, has developed various advocacy resources, including a bill summary and program fact sheets for every state and congressional district, available in the ACTION Campaign Toolkit.
According to estimates by Novogradac, the AHCIA would allow for the financing of nearly 1.6 million additional affordable rental homes; lead to the creation of more than 2.4 million jobs with an associated $271.4 billion in wages and business income; and raise nearly $94 million in federal, state, and local tax revenues.
We expect Senate Housing Credit champions Todd Young (R-IN), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), and Ron Wyden (D-OR) to reintroduce the Senate companion bill after the Senate returns from the upcoming Easter/Passover recess.
NCSHA strongly endorses the AHCIA and will continue to advocate for its passage, including inclusion of AHCIA provisions in the reconciliation bill Congress will be working on this year.
