Jennifer DePaul

The funded ratios of state pension systems continue to fall but the rate of decline is tapering, Fitch Ratings concluded in a report Tuesday.

The implementation of the Governmental Accounting Standards Board pension accounting changes are likely to add volatility to unfunded state pension liabilities as they are already in need of significant improvements, Standard & Poor's said in a report Tuesday.

Two more election cycles, fierce gridlock in Congress and a complicated tax code likely means that comprehensive tax reform won't happen until at least 2017, Mike Nicholas, chief executive officer of the Bond Dealers of America, told a group of student loan issuers Thursday.

The American Bar Association's Tax Exempt Financing Committee recommended that the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service issue guidance on the definition of issue price and safe harbors for determining private use of management contracts for bond financed facilities as part of its 2013-2014 priority list.

The IRS is auditing $220.74 million of general obligation bonds issued by the San Diego Unified School District in 2010 and 2012.

The House Appropriations Committee's subcommittee on financial services and general government approved a bill Wednesday to cut the Internal Revenue's Service budget to $9 billion for fiscal 2014.

The cities of Kaukauna and Oshkosh Wis. have announced they can redeem taxable direct-pay bonds because their redemption provisions were triggered by federal subsidy reductions that went into effect in March

Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., is urging the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service to update 16-year-old safe harbor provisions for tax-exempt health care bonds so that they will not conflict with health care reform.

The issuance of new bonds is a refunding, notwithstanding the technical termination of a partnership within six months, the IRS concluded in a recent private-letter ruling.

The Internal Revenue Service has granted a city more time to spend the proceeds of qualified zone academy bonds after determining that the failure of school districts to spend the proceeds within the required time frame was due to reasonable cause.

GASB is seeking public comments on proposed transition provisions for its new pension accounting and reporting standards that will impact state and local governments.

Although municipal issuer defaults in the first half of 2013 are at a multi-year high at $7.6 billion, overall sector trends appear to be improving, according to a report published by Municipal Market Advisors Tuesday.

A New Hampshire issuer appears to be the first student loan issuer to withdraw from the Internal Revenue Service's voluntary closing agreement program to settle a tax law dispute over some of the $135.4 million of adjustable-rate education loan revenue bonds it issued in 2011.

Alabama's Jefferson County expects to propose a closing agreement to the Internal Revenue Service within a few weeks on nearly $3.1 billion of outstanding sewer revenue warrants.

The Senate Finance Committee's top two tax writers asked their 98 colleagues on Thursday to submit detailed proposals justifying which tax breaks should be kept in the code as they move forward on comprehensive tax reform.

States may be in for a shock when they see their burden of unfunded pension liabilities based on a report released Thursday that includes Moody's Investors Services newly adjusted methodology for analyzing such data.

The Internal Revenue Service's Tax Exempt Bond Office published an educational paper summarizing processes to help issuers comply with federal tax law requirements and the voluntary closing agreement program provisions.

Former President Bill Clinton strongly urged Washington Tuesday to pass a national infrastructure bank bill and encouraged state and local governments to embrace more public-private partnerships.

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter castigated Washington for balancing its budget on the backs of local governments and proposing to curb the tax exemption for municipal bonds.

As cities continue to struggle meeting public pension obligations, many are requiring employees to contribute more or turning to less costly defined benefit plans, a report by the U.S. Conference of Mayors found.