Far West

WASHINGTON — The federal government should make tribal economic development bonds a permanent tool for Indian tribes and should consider raising or removing the current $2 billion ceiling on the program given the clear demand that exists for the bonds, an advisory committee said in a report sent to the Internal Revenue Service this week.

Several Democratic governors are lobbying to extend through June 2011 the increased federal Medicaid match they have been receiving since the passage of the stimulus last year.

ATLANTA — Dealers are calling for the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board to revise and clarify several aspects of draft interpretive guidance that outlines the steps they must take to ensure the prices they charge customers when buying and selling municipal securities are fair and reasonable.

ATLANTA — The head of the Internal Revenue Service’s tax-exempt bond office said yesterday that it’s premature for issuers to focus on the number of Build America Bond audits the IRS will conduct because the office is still gathering as much information about BABs as possible and ultimately wants to devote its energies to finding true abuses in the muni market.

As a U.S. Treasury Department bond program intended to help housing finance agencies nears its halfway point, results are lagging behind expectations, Standard & Poor’s warned in a report issued Tuesday.

WASHINGTON — Build America Bond issuers that inadvertently violate tax law requirements and voluntarily seek to correct them would have their federal subsidy payments reduced, rather than eliminated, if the Internal Revenue Service adopts recommendations an advisory committee presented to it yesterday.

ALAMEDA, Calif. — California voters signed off on most of the local bond measures they faced Tuesday, while also approving a major shakeup to the state’s primary election process and rejecting a measure that would have made it harder to establish and expand municipal electric utilities.

ATLANTA — Municipal issuers are overreacting to recent developments surrounding the compliance program for Build America Bonds, a Treasury official said yesterday in an effort to tamp down ongoing concerns.

The Government Finance Officers Association approved policy statements Tuesday calling on the Governmental Accounting Standards Board not to move forward with its “fiscal sustainability” project and for the Securities and Exchange Commission to scrap plans to consider requiring floating net asset values for shares of money market funds.

Demand for federal high-speed rail funds has once again exceeded supply, as the Federal Railroad Administration confirmed this week that 23 states flooded it with a$137 million of applications for proposed projects.