Washington

In 2011, North Dakota and Oregon enjoyed strong gross domestic product growth, but Wyoming, Mississippi and Alabama suffered shrinking economies. That was among the findings of a study released by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis on Tuesday.

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service has notified Cañon City, Colo., that it has closed an audit without changing the tax-exempt status on $12.73 million of certificates of participation issued in 2008 to provide financing for improvements to its water treatment facility.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. has agreed to pay $44.6 million to settle a 2008 class-action lawsuit in which municipal bond issuers accused the firm of bid-rigging of muni contracts.

WASHINGTON — A federal judge has delayed sentencing of CDR Financial Services and its founder David Rubin for several months, granting the Department of Justice additional time to complete complex calculations of restitution.

WASHINGTON — The chairman of a House Ways and Means Committee panel will hold a hearing on June 8 to examine a host of expiring tax provisions while the panel’s ranking Democrat called for renewal of the Build America Bonds program as part of a larger jobs bill.

The MSRB has proposed to discontinue the practice of temporarily masking the exact par value of large muni bond trades disseminated on a near real-time basis over the online EMMA system.

The Internal Revenue Service and the Treasury Department are seeking public comments on the arbitrage restrictions that pertain to tax-exempt bonds.

State aid and property taxes are dropping simultaneously for the first time since 1980, while demand for government services continue to rise, according to a report published by the Pew Center on the States Friday.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s proposal to extend the Bush-era tax cuts for households with incomes earning up to $1 million annually would have a marginal impact on municipal bond demand, market experts said.

The MSRB has issued a concept release seeking public feedback about whether to require underwriters and municipal advisors to disclose third-party payments on the online EMMA system.

WASHINGTON — Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels made the rounds in the nation’s capitol Thursday, urging lawmakers to pass a transportation bill friendly to public-private partnerships and telling reporters that he fears there might not be a bill at all.

Between 3% and 8% of federal money earmarked for the highway system since 2010 has gone to waste on inactive projects, according to a new GAO Report, which cites lax federal oversight and recommends a narrower role for the FHA.

Identical bills proposed by House and Senate lawmakers to provide rules of the road for taxing digital goods and services would immediately and significantly reduce state and local tax collections, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities warns in a report.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board has launched an online guide designed to help retail investors better understand the municipal bond market and the roles and responsibilities of muni bond brokers.

The Internal Revenue Service is auditing $3.19 billion of gas project revenue bonds that the Tennessee Energy Acquisition Corp. issued in 2006.

The increasing popularity of electronic brokerage has led the MSRB to examine whether retail investors who trade municipal securities through broker-dealers' online systems have adequate protection under its rules.

Criteria for the expanded definition of sophisticated municipal market professional (SMMP), which takes effect July 9.

Broker-dealers will not have to make the same disclosures to wealthier, more sophisticated individual investors that they do to other investors under a revised MSRB interpretative notice approved by the SEC.

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service has published a tax law compliance guide for issuers in conduit bond transactions.

Federal lawmakers and their staffs are wrong to think that tax-credit bonds could cost-effectively replace tax-exempt municipal bonds as a source of financing for state and local governments' projects, Citi said in a recent report.