New Senate bill would require Treasury to publish OZ data annually

Senators Tim Scott (R-SC) and Cory Booker (D-NJ)
Senators Tim Scott (R-SC) and Cory Booker (D-NJ) are co-sponsors of the new OZ reporting bill.

Senate Bill 1344 would require the Treasury Department to collect data and issue a report on the effectiveness of the Opportunity Zones tax policy. The bill is sponsored by Cory Booker (D-NJ), Tim Scott (R-SC), Todd Young (R-IN), and Margaret Hassan (D-NH).

The original Opportunity Zones legislation that was first introduced to Congress in February 2017 as the Investing in Opportunity Act included a reporting mandate to Treasury. But in the final version of the legislation that was passed as part of the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act, the reporting mandate was stripped out.

This new bill, introduced on May 7, would require that Treasury collect and report on the following information at both the national and state level:

  • The number of Qualified Opportunity Funds (QOFs).
  • The amount of assets held in QOFs.
  • The composition of QOFs by asset class.
  • The percentage of Opportunity Zones that have received QOF investment.
  • Economic indicators including job creation, poverty reduction, and new business starts in OZs.

To aid Treasury in their reporting mandate, QOFs would be required to provide the following information:

  • Investment amounts and dates.
  • Investment asset class and location.
  • Investment property type or business sector.
  • For business investment, the approximate number of full-time employees at the time of investment.
  • For real estate investment, the approximate total square footage and number of residential units.

Treasury would be responsible for releasing the data annually. In addition, Treasury would submit a report to Congress on the effectiveness of the OZ program five years after the bill is passed into law.