"This tax credit will certainly make the already attractive Great Northern assets even more appealing to prospective buyers," said Senator Susan Collins. "I'm pleased the Treasury Department heeded my request to provide these desperately needed funds."
In January, Collins renewed her call to the U.S. Treasury Department for prompt approval of a New Markets Tax Credit allocation of up to $30 million for the Maine Timberlands Company, a Great Northern subsidiary. "The mills have operated for nearly a century; their jobs have provided livelihoods for nearly every Katahdin region family, and their current idleness must have only one resolution - renewed production to sustain the region and its economy," Collins wrote in her most recent and urgent appeal to Acting Treasury Secretary, Kenneth Dam.
The New Markets Tax Credit allocation would be administered by Maine-based Coastal Enterprises Inc. Generally, the NMTC program permits taxpayers to receive a credit against federal income taxes for making qualified equity investments in community development entities. All of the investment must, in turn, be used by the CDE in support of business activities in the region.
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