Naomi Jagoda

State and local governments are more likely to issue pension obligation bonds if they face financial pressures, researchers at the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College found.

Consumer credit increased by $19.6 billion, or 7.4%, in May to $3.195 trillion, the Federal Reserve reported Tuesday.

If there's one thing congressional staff members need to remember about municipal bonds, it’s that they "built America," Columbia, S.C. Mayor Steve Benjamin said Wednesday.

The Internal Revenue Service continued its pattern of granting issuers more time to spend the proceeds of their qualified school construction bonds, ruling that one authority can have an additional three years to spend its QSCB proceeds.

The Internal Revenue Service’s tax-exempt bond office will hold an audio webcast on basic arbitrage concepts on July 10 at 2 p.m., Eastern Daylight Time.

Proposals to require colleges and universities to meet standards in areas such as graduation rates and students' abilities to repay loans in order to issue tax-exempt bonds drew concerns from municipal bond and higher education professionals, who warned of increased reporting requirements for the schools.

The Senate Finance Committee is scheduled to vote Thursday on a bill that would extend the authority to spend from the Highway Trust Fund through the end of the calendar year.

Existing home sales rose 4.9% to a seasonally adjusted 4.89 million-unit rate in May from a revised 4.66 million pace the previous month, the National Association of Realtors announced Monday.

The IRS recently clarified that "on-behalf-of" issuers, such as authorities and unincorporated enterprises, can issue tribal economic development bonds. The IRS also issued a private letter ruling that determined that an issuer's plan to current refund advance refunding bonds would not cause there to be transferred proceeds and potentially create an arbitrage issue.

The Federal Reserve will reduce its monthly asset purchases by $10 billion beginning in July, the Federal Open Market Committee said in a statement released Wednesday following the committee's two-day meeting.

The American Hospital Association has provided the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service with recommendations about updating tax-exempt bond rules to accommodate incentives of President Obama's health care reform law.

While states' credit ratings haven't been affected much by climate-related issues, primarily because the federal government has provided aid for those hit by disasters, that assistance may not always be available, a Standard and Poor's official said Tuesday.

Rating agencies and others said that draft standards, which among other things urge states and local governments to disclose their net or total other post-employment benefit liabilities on the face of their financial statements, would be helpful and provide more transparency.

Industrial production rose 0.6% in May, the Federal Reserve reported Monday.

The Internal Revenue Service has determined in an audit that general obligation bonds issued in 2007 and 2009 by the Sierra Kings Health Care District in California are private-activity bonds and not tax-exempt governmental bonds.

Recently released Treasury Department regulations that revise the standards practitioners follow when giving tax advice make the standards more flexible and less burdensome, bond lawyers said.

The Internal Revenue Service should expand its safe harbors for management contracts and provide guidance that issuers and conduit borrowers could rely on when their contracts don't meet the safe harbors, an advisory group told the IRS.

The federal government ran a $130.0 billion budget deficit in May, the Treasury reported Wednesday.

The estimated aggregate funded ratio of 150 state and local pension plans was unchanged at 72% in fiscal 2013 because actuarially smoothed assets only grew modestly and the California Public Employees' Retirement System significantly revised its reported funded ratio, the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College said in a new report.

Consumer credit increased by $26.9 billion, or 10.2%, in April to $3.175 trillion, the Federal Reserve reported Friday.