According to the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development, tracts of Norristown may be in for new tax breaks under a federal program designed to promote development in rural and low-income urban communities nationwide.

Gov. Wolf included the census tracts covering those areas in his list of nominees Friday to become so-called Qualified Opportunity Zones, which would make them eligible for incentives enacted as part of the tax-cut legislation signed into law in December, writes Jacob Adelman in the Philadelphia Daily News.

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The incentives offer deferral, reduction, and potential elimination of some federal taxes for capital gains from investing in businesses, real estate, and other ventures in low-income communities.

Pennsylvania had 1,197 census tracts eligible for Qualified Opportunity Zone status and was given the opportunity to designate 25 percent, or a maximum 300 low-income community tracts as zones, the governor’s office said in a release.

The Treasury Department has already designated areas of Delaware around Wilmington and parts of Camden in South Jersey as opportunity zones, according to online mapping service PolicyMap, which has been tracking the program. Officials from those states, and others, sent their tract nominations ahead of Wolf.

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