Washington

A risk management officer of a New Jersey authority and a tax partner at a law firm in Chicago have been tapped to join the three-member tax-exempt bond group of an Internal Revenue Service advisory committee. Katherine A. Newell, director of risk management and ethics liaison officer at the New Jersey Educational Facilities Authority in Princeton, N.J., and Lorraine Tyson, a tax partner in the public finance practice group at Pugh, Jones & Johnson PC in Chicago, will take their seats on the panel after its June 6 meeting here.

Backers of alternatives to traditional highway financing are ramping up efforts to win over policy makers and a skeptical public, as the groundswell against tolling remains strong and lawmakers labor to save the rapidly diminishing Highway Trust Fund.

WASHINGTON — Lawrence Sandor has been named the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board's deputy general counsel for regulatory support.

Four groups representing localities are forming an advisory council as part of the Streamlined Sales Tax agreement to focus on local tax issues and to push for Congress to approve online sales-tax legislation.

WASHINGTON — States slowed their borrowing dramatically, with a growth of only 2.5% in 2011, despite low interest rates, according to a new Moody’s Investors Service report.

WASHINGTON — Donald Borut announced Tuesday that he will retire as executive director of the National League of Cities at the end of 2012, after 22 years.

WASHINGTON — Two top experts and staff officials at the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials plan to retire on Feb. 1 next year.

WASHINGTON — Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood is urging lawmakers to include in a final highway bill temporary relief from the alternative minimum tax for private-activity bonds and provisions that keep TIFIA loans from being subordinated to other debt in municipal bankruptcies.

Natwar Gandhi has a unique job in a city unlike any other, but the District of Columbia's CFO strives to use the advantages of his one-of-a-kind office to offset the many challenges he readily admitted his city faces.

A tax-exempt advisory group to the Internal Revenue Service plans to release a report on June 6 about recent changes the agency has made to forms that bond issuers and nonprofits must file with it.

The Internal Revenue Service has notified the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago that it has closed an audit without changing the tax-exempt status on $346.6 million of general obligation refunding bonds and $50.79 million of GO refunding bonds limited-tax series issued in May 2006.

The MSRB plans to issue a concept release seeking public input on whether it should require underwriters and municipal advisors to disclose over EMMA any third-party payments they make or receive in connection with municipal or municipal-related transactions, an MSRB official said.

WASHINGTON — The Governmental Accounting Standards Board released a guide last week designed to help taxpayers and others glean useful information from school districts' financial statements.

The National Association of Bond Lawyers and the American Bar Association tax-exempt financing committee are urging the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service to develop guidance on the definition of issue price for tax-exempt bonds, Build America Bonds and other direct-pay tax credit bonds.

Financial regulators on Thursday defended the practice of settling federal charges brought against financial firms without requiring them to admit they did anything wrong.

House Ways and Means Committee chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., and other Republican leaders hope by summer to have a broad framework for comprehensive tax reform so that they can fast-track it next year.

Moody’s Investors Service downgraded Wenatchee, Wash.’s unlimited-tax general obligation bond rating to Ba2 from A3 on Monday because the city will allow a local events center to default on debt the city agreed to back.

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service is auditing $12.73 million of certificates of participation that were issued by Cañon City, Colo., in 2008 to provide financing for improvements to its water treatment facility.

The National Association of Bond Lawyers released a document containing guidance and suggestions to help issuers provide appropriate disclosures about their public pension systems in bond documents.

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service's tax-exempt bond office plans to send a letter to several hundred bond issuers that have suffered covenant or payment defaults in recent years, alerting them that certain actions they take could inadvertently trigger a reissuance of the bonds.