Jennifer DePaul

WASHINGTON — An industry group has asked regulators to consider municipal bond marketing practices and several muni rules as they develop guidance on the issue price of bonds.

The Treasury Department is urging Congress to put Indian tribal governments on a par with states and localities so they can issue both governmental bonds without the "essential governmental function" restriction and private-activity bonds.

The Joint Committee on Taxation released its annual tax expenditure estimates showing $177.6 billion for public-purpose muni bonds over five years, while a governmental group urged President Obama and congressional leaders to "go big" on federal deficit reduction and rely on two reports that proposed curtailing or eliminating tax exemption for new muni bonds.

WASHINGTON — The White House is once again asking Congress to increase the federal borrowing limit by $1.2 trillion to avoid hitting the nation's debt ceiling, but the request is sure to trigger another battle on Capitol Hill and possibly threaten the availability of sales of state and local government series securities to municipal issuers.

The Internal Revenue Service's initiative to determine whether municipal bonds are being initially offered at prices that fail to comply with tax requirements has left issuers upset and confused about the definition of issue price and what specific abuses the IRS is looking for.

Reps. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., and Scott Garrett, R-N.J., have introduced legislation that would permanently exempt middle-class taxpayers from the alternative minimum tax, potentially boosting market demand for private-activity bonds.

The Internal Revenue Service is auditing $800 million of hospital revenue bonds that were issued by the South Miami, Fla., Health Facilities Authority in May 2007 to finance projects for affiliates of Baptist Health South Florida and to refund previously issued bonds.

State and local governments will be able to issue a total of $32.821 billion of private-activity bonds under a national volume cap next year — 1.2% or $379.96 million more than in 2011.

The Internal Revenue Service is auditing $177.2 million of Series 2005I long-term adjustable-rate hospital revenue bonds issued by the Highlands County, Fla., Health Facilities Authority for the Adventist Health System/Sunbelt Group.