Published on 06/26/2015
Hello, I’m Vaughan de Kirby and today we’re are going to talk about what is happening in the senate. I’m holding in my hand the American job creation and investment reform on 2015. It is cosponsored, bipartisan, by both the democratic and republican members of the senate: Mr. Leahy and Mr. Grassley. Now there are a lot of very complex provisions, but I thought that I’d briefly talk about the ones that may in fact impact you.
Now you probably read that the investment amount is proposed to go up. Now if this were to pass as it is written today, the regional center investment would go to $800,000, and the non-regional center investment would go to $1.2 million. Now something important to point out here: according to the law as it is written now, if the regional center you have selected has exemplar approval at $500,000 your investment would remain $500,000. So that means that $500,000 investment in EB-5 may continue for some time.
But we are not home free yet with this bill. Something that you need to be aware of: One of the provisions in this bill is on what is called “Source of Funds.” As you may know, you must show that the funds that you are using to invest in EB-5 are from a lawful source. In the past, the proof has been very rational. Under this bill they are implying that they are going to require up to 7 years in tax returns in order to prove the legality of the funds. They are also going to limit who can make a gift to another person in order to do an EB-5 investment. So all of these things may impact you, so you may be able to get under the $500,000 number, but you may have much more difficulty under the source of funds requirements of this bill.
Now understand that this is a proposed bill at this point. There are going to be a lot of negotiations going on. Some things are going to be added and something are going to be taken away. The only things I can offer you to take away from our discussion today is if EB-5 is important to you, don’t wait until after this bill becomes law, because we just don’t know what is going to happen. Anyone that tells you they know is not telling the truth. We don’t know how this law is going to look after September 30th. The only thing we know is what exists today and it is my recommendation to my clients that if EB-5 is important to them, that they take action now. I hope this was helpful to you.
