The credit is claimed for the year the rehabilitation is completed, as identified by the “completion date.”
Per State Program regulations, the “completion date” is EITHER the date of the Certificate of Occupancy OR the date that the final, eligible, physical rehabilitation expenditure was incurred; soft costs incurred after the rehabilitation work is completed, such as the CPA or review fees, are not used to determine the completion date.
The State credit may be carried forward for up to ten years. There is no carryback for the State credit. As of January 1, 2017, there is a $5 million dollar cap on the amount of credits a single taxpayer can claim in a single taxable year.
The Federal credit may be carried forward for up to twenty years, and back for one year. Additionally, under the Federal Program the credit cannot all be claimed during the year of project completion; it must be claimed over at least the first five years in increments of 20% of the total credit.