Stakeholder Spotlight
Maleda Berhane is the CEO, Principal, and co-founder of AR Spruce LLC, a Philadelphia-based real estate services and development company. The firm assists enterprises, property owners and municipalities in all aspects of real estate development. This includes analysis, site assessment, site selection, project phasing, capacity analyses, sourcing funding and more, all while managing complex stakeholder relationships to get the job done.
An opportunity for Tax Reform
Maleda is hopeful that substantial tax reform to benefit small businesses in Philadelphia is imminent:
“The tax environment in Philadelphia for a small business is challenging. There's room for improvement, and I would like to think that we have individuals at the table both public and private, who are able to think of innovative strategies on how to challenge these issues.”
Promoting diversity through incentives:
Maleda believes Philadelphia can do more to encourage companies to diversify their project teams and procurement. She says this could be accomplished through tax credits or other incentives:
“We would like to see corporations get tax incentives for increasing their diversity related expenses and achieving diversity procurement benchmarks. Tax benefits to companies that demonstrate progress towards diversity goals will promote what many of our elected officials for years have been trying to promote: job growth, workforce development and increased diverse spending.”
