Jennifer DePaul

In the seven months since the Internal Revenue Service revamped its tribal economic development bond program to boost issuance and help spur job creation, it appears the program has yet again faltered.

President Obama is expected to focus on the need for infrastructure investments in his fifth State of the Union address Tuesday night amid a sluggish economic backdrop.

Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., has introduced legislation that would permanently extend the Build America Bond program, but at the lowest proposed subsidy rate yet.

The IRS' tax-exempt bond office will start including questions about post-issuance compliance procedures and implementation in information document requests, an official said Thursday here at the Government Finance Officers Association winter meeting.

The Government Finance Officers Association plans to launch a grassroots campaign to help their members better understand how current threats to tax exemption could adversely affect their governments and what they can do to stave off these threats.

The Internal Revenue Service is providing temporary relief for victims of Hurricane Sandy by suspending certain requirements for qualified residential rental projects financed with tax-exempt bonds that are used to provide emergency housing for displaced persons.

President Obama urged Congress on Tuesday to pass a short-term spending cut and tax reform package as a way to stave off the looming March 1 sequestration cuts that he said would be economically damaging to the U.S. economy.

The Treasury Department has reopened the sales of State and Local Government Securities as of Tuesday at noon.

State tax revenues rose 2.7% in the third quarter of 2012 for the eleventh consecutive quarter of growth, the Rockefeller Institute of Government reported Tuesday.

The Joint Committee on Taxation released its annual tax expenditure estimates showing $191.3 billion for public purpose municipal bonds over five years.

Moody's Investors Service downgraded a record $311 billion of public finance debt in 2012, surpassing the previous 2009 record of $256 billion, a negative trend that is likely to continue this year.

The looming sequestration cuts, including those on Build America Bond payments, will likely be higher than estimated, several municipal bond market participants are warning.

The Internal Revenue Service on Thursday issued allocations for $400 million of qualified zone academy bonds for each of the 2012 and 2013 calendar years, showing the maximum amount of these bonds that can be issued in each state.

The proposed 28% cap on the value of tax exemption would be a far less dangerous threat to the municipal bond community than a top income tax rate of 25%, former congressional tax counsel John Buckley said at the American Bar Association's tax-exempt financing committee winter meeting in Orlando, Florida.

The Internal Revenue Service is auditing $228 million of tax-exempt LIBOR floating rate bonds issued by the Oklahoma Student Loan Authority in 2010 as part of an expanded audit the agency had initiated last fall.

The Treasury and IRS have sent two separate letters to Sens. Lautenberg and Nelson regarding concerns over available financing for housing damaged by Hurricane Sandy and tax guidance on political subdivisions that would affect community development districts in Florida.

The House voted Wednesday afternoon to suspend the federal government's borrowing authority until May 19 to avoid a potential default and debt crisis.

House Speaker Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, told reporters Tuesday night that not one single Republican would vote to increase revenue by curbing tax expenditures right now and that their focus is solely on cutting spending.

The tax-exempt status of $8.5 million of bonds issued by the Delaware River Port Authority in 2003 for the LEAP Academy University Charter School, Inc., could be in jeopardy because the Internal Revenue Service revoked the charter school's tax-exempt status.

Sixty-one of the largest U.S. cities in the nation came out of the Recession facing a gap of more than $217 billion between the pension and health care benefits they promised to pay workers and the funds they saved to pay those bills, a new report by the Pew Charitable Trusts found.