CohnReznick’s Tax Credit Investment Services (TCIS) is a dedicated business unit within CohnReznick that provides strategic advisory and due diligence services to help institutional investors make informed decisions on acquiring and managing tax-advantaged investments. Not only do community development tax credit investments help banks meet their obligations under the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), but they offer institutional investors a competitive rate of return and a very low risk profile.
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The TCIS team is comprised of a multi-disciplinary group of professionals including CPAs, financial analysts and other professionals with real estate, banking and public-sector experience.
Working with commercial real estate, compliance, and corporate tax personnel, TCIS provides advisory services related to equity market conditions, investment options, investment due diligence, regulatory requirements, and investment impacts to financial statements.
TCIS also provides advisory services focused on best practices in due diligence, asset monitoring, and counter-party risk management, which result in improvements to community investment strategies, policies and procedures, legal documentation, and investor reporting.
TCIS is well regarded in the industry for:
- Having authored over 600 investment due diligence reports for tax credit investors since the early 1990s; experience with multi-investor, proprietary and secondary market transactions;
- Having authored numerous affordable housing industry studies and spoken frequently at industry conferences and events;
- Being sought after by bank regulators and the U.S. Government Accountability Office to provide industry data and insights;
- Having designed the industry’s first and only third-party application to automate the proportional amortization method for housing tax credit investments;
- Publishing an ongoing bi-monthly monitor of LIHTC equity market trends and pricing in the Tax Credit Advisor magazine.
Tax credit and investment strategies
- Assist with strategic planning and execution to satisfy client-specific investment goals;
- Educate clients on investment methods and investment offerings;
- Speak regularly at industry events to increase understanding of tax-advantaged investment vehicles
Investment Due Diligence
- Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the managers of housing tax credit, renewable energy and any tax-advantaged investment fund offerings;
- Assess the risk profile of property and fund investments
- Review and stress test financial and accounting assumptions of property and fund investment projections;
Financial Accounting and Consulting
- Consult on technology platform needed to support the accounting for tax credit investments, and
- Implement AmortizationPro, the industry’s first and only third-party application to automate the proportional amortization method for housing tax credit investments as well as other accounting methods for tax credit investments.
Portfolio and Asset Management Reviews
- Review investment portfolio records to identify yield and benefit delivery results;
- Review investment portfolio records for unclaimed tax credits and loss benefits;
- Evaluate asset management reporting utilized to monitor portfolio performance;
- Advise on exit strategies to reduce asset management burden.
Organizational Assessment and Best Practices
- Evaluate current policies and procedures for identifying suitable investments, undertaking due diligence, negotiating business terms and approving investments, closing investments and monitoring performance, investment disposition, and troubled asset workout;
- Benchmark policies and procedures to industry best practices and identify deficiencies;
- Review strategic, compensation, and succession and contingency plans, as well as business continuity and disaster recovery plans;
- Evaluate individual investment criteria in the context of strategic plans;
- Assess client interdepartmental coordination;
- Assess reliance on external resources for investment acquisitions and asset monitoring;
- Make recommendations for improvements to operations and procedures.
Market Education and Industry Research
- Monitor and benchmark tax credit industry landscape, performance track record and stakeholder activities;
- Present basic investment considerations through the life cycle of tax-advantaged investments;
- Develop staff training materials relative to tax-advantaged investments;
- Provide policy and regulatory advisory services;
- Provide insight on the LIHTC market.