Defending the Use of Tax Credits for Historical Preservation Historical establishments serve as reminders of the past to help people understand where they came from and to understand where they are headed. People feel more connected to a community when they can see visual reminders of a community’s evolution. One way in which to promote the maintenance and improvement of historical establishments is to offer benefits, such as Tax Credits, to property stakeholders. Keeping and renewing these Tax credits is vital to the future of historical preservation in our cities, states and country. Tax credits for historical preservation help create jobs, improve local economies through higher household income, are good for local communities, and are good for the environment. Some people would argue against Tax credits because they believe they hurt industries not related to historical preservation and is too much of a burden on tax payers. The biggest benefit to supporting historical preservation tax credits is in the number of jobs it creates. Historic preservation is more labor intensive than new construction, and is proven to create more and better-paying jobs. Since 1978 the investment in federally supported tax credits has created approximately 2.35 Million jobs which include 121.25 billion in Gross Domestic Products. These jobs were mostly created in the construction sector but also created jobs that impacted the service, manufacturing and retail trade sectors. Indirectly agriculture, mining, transportation and public utilities also benefitted from the results of tax credits. Over that period of 34 years 690,000 construction jobs were created. One could argue that construction jobs aren’t permanent just temporary; while not all construction jobs can be considered permanent over 417,000 jobs were created in the service sector and 344,000 jobs were created