My creative project/thesis is a manual that provides instruction for non-profit organizations who wish to use federal historic tax incentives to acquire funding from investors to rehabilitate historic buildings through tax credit syndication. 

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Syndication happens when the building owner with historic tax credits transfers the credits to an investor for a cash investment either at the beginning of rehabilitation or at the end of the rehabilitation.  The difficulty of a non-profit syndication deal is that as the building owner, the nonprofit is tax-exempt thus disqualifying them from the National Park Service Historic Preservation Tax Incentives Program.  

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The manual is beneficial to nonprofits because it will be able to explain the process of setting up LLCs to use during syndication, explaining syndication deal structure and the various applications needed to complete the NPS Historic Preservation Tax Incentive Program. At the completion of a syndication deal, the non-profits will have cash and the individual or corporate investor will use the tax credits to offset some of their own tax liability.



I have included sections that explain the historic preservation components of completing a historic tax credit deal.  The building must be eligible to be nominated to the National Register for Historic Places.  If eligible, the non-profit must complete the National Parks Service Tax Incentive Application Part I and Part II.  The manual will explain the process, rules, and forms to complete this section and provide the proper resources to contact in preparing these forms. 



Syndication of federal historic tax incentives is complicated and necessitates hiring professionals in historic preservation, legal, and a few more.  The benefit is that non-profits are able to preserve buildings important to their communities and cities that might not have been accomplished through traditional financing   



This manual is meant to assist in familiarizing non-profits with historic preservation, the Federal Historic Tax Incentives Program, and the syndication or the sale of tax credits to investors who in turns invest in historic building rehabs.