The Internal Revenue Service has closed its audit of $50 million of revenue bonds issued by the Illinois Health Facilities Authority, now part of the Illinois Finance Authority, without a change to the tax-exempt status of the debt, the IFA disclosed Wednesday.
The IRS action was disclosed by the issuer in a material event notice it submitted to the nationally recognized municipal securities information repositories.
In the notice, the authority said it received a letter from the IRS stating that it had closed its examination into the Series 2002A bonds with no change to their tax-exempt status.
The IRS began the audit earlier this year.
The authority announced the examination in a material event notice it filed with the NRMSIRs in May and said at that time that the IRS informed it that the audit was not initiated because of any specific problems with the bonds.
According to bond documents, the bonds were issued to finance the acquisition, construction, and renovation of certain Lake Forest Hospital facilities. The bonds also were used to refund $10 million of outstanding 1982 variable-rate demand bonds, which were also used to finance the acquisition, construction, and renovation of various health care facilities.
Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue, now Jones Day, was bond counsel on the deal, and Sidley Austin Brown & Wood, now Sidley Austin LLP, was the authority's general counsel. The bonds were underwritten by Banc One Capital Markets Inc., which was acquired by JPMorgan Chase & Co. in 2004. Gardner, Carton & Douglas, which has since merged with Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP, was underwriter's counsel.
