Marc Luber: Hey everyone – welcome to JD CareersOutThere – where we get you career
advice from fellow lawyers and non-practicing lawyers – to help you find success and happiness
in your career.
I’m ML – and today we’re exploring the career path of community development.
We’re talking to my old friend from law school, Marc Hirshman, who’s a Sr VP of
US Bank in St. Louis, where he’s the Director of Tax Credit Syndications and New Business
Development for their US Bankcorp Community Development Corporation.
Here’s a little look at our discussion where Marc explains what the community development
path is all about.
Marc Hirshman: Community development work is a pretty broad category.
It ranges really anywhere from doing real estate development to kind of straight up
economic development.
It can range from work within municipalities, work within private sector, and it could really
encompass the actual development to the financing to the other governmental incentives or programs
that are utilized to make it happen.
And we at – where I work, at U.S. Bank’s Community Development Corporation, specifically
do the tax credit equity investing in a number of different Federal and State programs.
Luber: Okay.
So, I think what I get really excited about is this tax credit equity investing.
I want to learn about that and explain that so everyone can get a good grasp here of what
exactly that means.
Marc Hirshman: So, essentially the Federal government and often State and local governments
utilize tax code to implement public policy.
So, for instance, there's a program called the Affordable Housing or Low Income Housing
Tax Credit Program, which has been around for roughly 25 years.
And what the government does is it creates tax credits to provide economic benefit to
encourage developers to develop through this program to create affordable housing for low
income families.
Luber: Okay.
So, now I want to make sure everyone gets the fact that there's a cool, do-gooder angle
to this that I really like.
So, you're really helping in a sense, and the tax code is set up to help society in
this sense.
So you guys will invest in affordable housing, and help that get developed and help the renewable
energy space get developed and help buildings get rehabbed, refurbished for the purpose
of helping the community and then in exchange for that, getting a tax credit for the money
that was put into that project.
Is that right?
Marc Hirshman: Exactly!
So, really and that’s the reason that most financial institutions, our financial institution,
is involved in these programs is that, you know, number one, there's a community benefit
to it and that’s what really drives a lot of people within the industry and why people
are interested in participating or being members of the industry, is that at the end of the
day, there's a tangible benefit to society, whether it's the creation of a new business
or a new building or a new renewable energy source or affordable housing or, you know,
saving a building that might otherwise be torn down.
So there's that community aspect.
There's the financial benefits of by investing these tax credits, the investments provide
a good financial benefit to the investment community, whether again, it's a financial
institution or a large – other large corporation generally.
And so you provide all of these things.
And then for the banks, there is an additional element or component of it: is that banks
are subject to the Community Reinvestment Act, or CRA.
And this satisfies, whether it's an investment or a loan, it satisfies or helps fulfill the
need to comply with the Community Reinvestment Act.
Luber: Okay.
So, then your division, or your role, is helping the community and then offsetting the tax
burden that the bank has for other business that they do.
Marc Hirshman: Correct.
Correct.
Luber: I love the mix of the business and the do-gooder angles for this career path.
You guys can watch a full episode of Marc and I going more in-depth into community development
careers and you’re gonna learn more about what he does, how you can do it, how you can
break in – and how your JD applies to this path.
That’s gonna happen at JD-CareersOutThere.com – or JDCOT.com for a shortcut.
If you’re already at the site, you can scroll down to the full version – be sure to become
a member so you can watch the full interview and get access to lots more exclusive content
filled with great advice.
Thanks again for watching everyone – I’m Marc Luber and look forward to seeing you
again soon.
Take care.