Washington

The Internal Revenue Service has closed an audit without changing the tax-exempt status of $219.22 million of bonds that were issued by the curators of the University of Missouri in 2006.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority ordered five firms — Neuberger Berman, Lawson Financial, Edward D. Jones, Estrada Hinojosa and UVEST Financial — to pay a total of nearly $120,000 in fines and restitution for violations of municipal securities rules.

FINRA will soon begin examining underwriters of municipal bonds to see if they can show they have carried out disclosure due-diligence obligations like those in a risk alert the SEC issued in March, a senior official said.

CHICAGO — Bond lawyers are beginning to require that underwriters sit down with members of the issuer’s finance team to discuss how they determined the issue price for the bonds, an IRS official said at a seminar held here on Wednesday.

Executives from Fitch Ratings responded to issuer concerns, saying their agency does not require municipal bond issuers to sign indemnity agreements releasing Fitch from liabilities resulting from ratings.

WASHINGTON — The push for Congress to pass long-term highway funding legislation is reaching a fever pitch two weeks before the current law expires, as Sen. Barbara Boxer led a rally Wednesday urging approval of her two-year transportation bill in time to avoid another extension.

As GASB prepares to vote on new standards for public pension fund accounting that would shed light on unfunded liabilities, a recently formed state and local task force is developing guidance to keep governments focused on their annual required contributions.

States' fiscal conditions are improving and, despite ongoing uncertainties, many of them can be expected to maintain good credit ratings and to try to lock in low interest rates with additional bond financings, officials of two groups said Tuesday.

CHICAGO — Ongoing turmoil in financial markets and historically low interest rates have led institutional investors to increase scrutiny of issuers’ disclosure documents, an insurance company investment officer said at the Government Finance Officers Association annual meeting.

CHICAGO — Government Finance Officers Association debt committee members on Sunday urged municipal issuers to consider disclosing information about their bank loans online on EMMA in the wake of a Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board notice requesting such information.

The IRS will begin limited-scope examinations of bond anticipation notes in July and then examinations of filed 8038-T forms on arbitrage rebate, an IRS official said.

WASHINGTON — Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus said Monday that he plans to meet with committee members this week to discuss extending expired and expiring tax provisions “without any games.”

A federal judge rejected a request by the U.S. Justice Department to use sections of certain audio files as evidence in the upcoming bid-rigging trial against former UBS Financial Services bankers Peter Ghavami, Gary Heinz and Michael Welty.

WASHINGTON — Sentencing has been delayed until Oct. 25 for Adrian Scott-Jones, a former guaranteed investment contract broker who pleaded guilty in 2010 to charges of fraud and conspiracy in connection with alleged bid-rigging.

WASHINGTON — Congress will likely pass a separate bill to extend expired and expiring tax law provisions, some of which are bond-related, before the end of the year, the chairman of a House Ways and Means panel told reporters after a hearing Friday.

WASHINGTON — The Council of Development Finance Agencies will unveil a draft legislative proposal Friday that would ease tax-law restrictions for small industrial development bonds, which are used to finance manufacturing facilities.

WASHINGTON — Overall, state income and sales tax collections for the first quarter increased by 4.1% compared to the same quarter last year, the Rockefeller Institute of Government said in a report Thursday.

A tax-exempt bond advisory group to the IRS found that some of the agency's bond-related forms are overly burdensome for issuers and recommended that some questions be eliminated.

WASHINGTON — The District of Columbia's City Council has proposed delaying until Jan. 1, 2013, plans to start taxing non-D.C. bonds purchased by district residents.