Jennifer DePaul

The American Bar Association told the Internal Revenue Service Tuesday that it strongly supports proposed regulations that would eliminate standards for state and local bond opinions under Circular 230.

Tax-exempt bonds should not be replaced and should be excluded from any cap on tax expenditures, a municipal bond coalition wrote leaders of Congress on Tuesday.

The IRS is auditing $149.1 million of general obligation bonds issued by Beaverton, Ore. School District in 2007.

Regulatory priorities for the Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service this year and next include proposing guidance on arbitrage investment restrictions which likely includes issue price, according to plans they released this week.

In a favorable decision, the Internal Revenue Service ruled that assessment bonds and lease revenue bonds do not satisfy a private loan financing test, according to recently issued private letter rulings.

Three muni market groups have joined forces with the Council of Development Finance Agencies and sent Congress draft legislation that would create special Hurricane Sandy Recovery Bonds to help businesses and people in the Mid-Atlantic region still reeling from storm-related destruction.

State and local public-employee pension systems had $3 trillion in cash and investment holdings in 2011, a $351.9 billion or 13.2% increase from $2.7 trillion in 2010, according to a new annual Census Bureau survey.

The credit quality for most municipal issuers who were affected by Hurricane Sandy is likely to remain unchanged, despite late debt service payments by four of them, according to a new report by Moody's Investors Service.

The possibility of a budget compromise between President Obama and Congress to raise income tax rates to rise is more likely than one that would include capping the value of tax exemption for the wealthy, a new Morgan Stanley Smith Barney report found.

The IRS has told the city of Bell, Calif., that $35 million of general obligation bonds it issued in 2007 may not be tax-exempt because the agency believes the bond issue is a hedge bond.

The creditworthiness of the U.S. federal government hinges on the outcome of budget negotiations in 2013 between the newly re-elected Barack Obama and the still divided Congress, a new Moody's report warned.

The nonpartisan congressional budget office warned that failure to aver the fiscal cliff could trigger another recession and cause the jobless rate to spike to 9.1%.

An attorney representing the Florida Village Center Community Development District has sent a letter to the IRS office of chief counsel challenging its tentative decision that the authority is not a political subdivision.

The IRS is auditing $80.2 million of capital improvement revenue bonds the Arborwood Community Development District, Florida issued in 2006.

The nearly $30 billion in economic damages caused by Hurricane Sandy will not have a detrimental effect on the creditworthiness of U.S. debt, but it is likely to have negative consequences for mid-Atlantic electric utility companies.

Allyson Dodd has been promoted to field operations manager of the IRS' TEB office and Vicky Tsilas will officially begin her new position at the Treasury Department as associate tax legislative counsel on Monday.

The Internal Revenue Service's tentative decision that the Village Center Community Development District in Florida is not a political subdivision could have far-reaching effects on special purpose districts set up for municipal bond issues nationwide.

The IRS "tentatively" concluded that the Florida Village Community Development District is not a political subdivision, raising questions about the tax-exempt status of community development district bonds nationwide.

The Council of Development Finance Agencies is urging Congress to create special Hurricane Sandy Recovery Bonds upon their return from recess in two weeks. The bonds would assist affected states, municipalities, and private businesses repair storm-related damage.

Treasury Officials announced that the U.S. will hit its $16.39 trillion borrowing limit at the end of the year but they can employ extraordinary measures such as stopping the issue of SLGS to allow Congress more time to act so the government meets its legal obligations.