Empowerment Zones

Sometimes I go off on tangents while doing taxes and start reading all kinds of IRS publications...but this caught my eye.  take it with a grain of salt as I am no expert and not a CPA - consult a professional:  Did you know that the Mount Vernon Triangle is an enterprise zone?  For tax purposes (check out form 8844) certain 2000 census tract sections of DC with 20%+ poverty (page 11) are classified as Empowerment Zones.  Why is this important?  well if you have a business in the Triangle (or one of the other sections) and you employ DC residents (who live anywhere in DC), you may qualify for a big tax credit - up to 15k per employee if i am reading that right.  There are also other benefits, like some sort of tax exempt financing and increased section 179 deduction.  this is part of form 3800 General business credit.  I hope all of the new & exisiting Triangle businesses know about this, its pretty neato.  but it wont last for long...this year is census year and its pretty evident that the demographics downtown have been severely altered.  One more thing, if you look at the map, PQ & parts of Shaw are included.