Jennifer DePaul

A Republican congressman from Florida has introduced legislation that would terminate legislative authority for issuing tax-exempt bonds to finance energy conservation, infrastructure, school, hospital small manufacturing and other projects.

The Internal Revenue Service is auditing two separate series of hospital revenue bonds totaling $142.2 million that were issued by the Highlands County, Fla., Health Facilities Authority in 2005 and 2007 and then redeemed.

President Obama will release his fiscal year 2014 budget proposal on April 10, Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Thursday at a briefing.

The Internal Revenue Service's own appraisal valuations show the Village Center Community Development District in Florida did not overpay when purchasing four pieces of property with bond proceeds, according to the CDD's lawyer.

As state and local governments prepare to transition to new public pension funding policies this summer, a recently formed task force has released a guide for elected officials to help them develop their pension plans' funding policy.

The $1.2 trillion in across-the-board federal budget cuts known as sequestration will not directly impact states' finances, but will dampen their economic outlook and slow the recovery of their revenues, which are still struggling to return to pre-recession levels, Moody's Investors Service said Tuesday.

The IRS is auditing $356.2 million of revenue refunding bonds issued by the Denver, Colo., Convention Center Hotel Authority in May 2006.

The Internal Revenue Service is auditing $529.1 million of education loan revenue bonds issued by the Alaska Student Loan Corporation from 2003 through 2012.

State and local supporters of the online sales tax bill praised lawmakers for the passage of legislation to allow states to collect a tax from online retailers and catalogs in the fiscal year 2014 Senate budget resolution.

Municipal market groups see diminished support for private-activity bonds despite recent concerns about the use of them raised by House tax committee members, a former federal muni regulator and a state treasurer.

One of the options presented by the Senate Finance Committee to simplify the tax code is to repeal the alternative minimum tax, which is applied to private activity bonds and increases their borrowing costs.

Congress passed a short-term funding measure Thursday to keep the federal government operating and avoid a shutdown next week.

More than 50 state and local groups representing housing, transportation and the infrastructure industry sent a letter to Senate leaders Wednesday urging them to maintain the status of tax-exempt bonds.

As the Senate considers debate on the fiscal year 2014 budget later this week, several Senators would like to include an amendment for an online sales tax bill into the budget.

While they differed in opinions about the economic benefits of municipal bonds, House Ways and Means Committee members on both sides of the aisle and experts agreed that the rules for qualified private-activity bonds should be reexamined.

The threats to tax exemption are the most serious they have ever been since the Roosevelt Administration but the market can successfully defend it from lawmakers who are looking for more revenue, said a former Democratic congressional tax counsel at the NABL conference.

The Internal Revenue Service's tax-exempt bond office has issued a report that examines the potential problems that can occur during the three main phases of a bond transaction and suggests how issuers can avoid them. But some lawyers attending the National Association of Bond Lawyers' 13th annual Tax and Securities Law Institute questioned whether the IRS should be writing a report that is oriented toward providing best practices rather than the tax law.

The Internal Revenue Service's tax-exempt bond office published its fiscal year 2013 work plan, saying it will continue to focus on identifying and responding to abusive transactions.

House Republicans unveiled their fiscal 2014 budget Tuesday that would overhaul the tax code without raising new revenue, slash federally-funded high-speed rail, repeal President Obama's healthcare law, and cut domestic programs.

A dozen Senate Democrats and an Independent lawmaker have re-introduced a bill that would impose a minimum 30% tax on high income tax payers who earn more than $1 million as a way to help reduce the ballooning federal deficit.