Washington

WASHINGTON — Municipal market participants have many questions about new rules adopted by the Internal Revenue Service that require paid tax preparers to register with it, possibly take competency tests, and pay penalties for improper filings.

Transportation stakeholders are divided this week on a renewed push by President Obama for Congress to provide $50 billion of funding and the release of a report by the Treasury Department and Council of Economic Advisers that stresses the economic risk of not spending more on infrastructure.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board has hired Karen Du Brul as an associate general counsel to work on the rulemaking and policy team as it begins to write rules for muni advisers.

DETROIT — The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board’s executive director on Friday tried to allay some of the concerns nondealer financial advisers have about the regulatory burdens they may face under MSRB oversight.

DETROIT — Independent financial ­advisers meeting here Thursday questioned the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Martha Mahan Haines about which advisers must register with the SEC under the new regulatory reform law, while Haines announced that the agency will hold its next field hearing on munis in Chicago on Nov. 16.

WASHINGTON — The Governmental Accounting Standards Board is set to kick off a series of public hearings next week on its preliminary draft pension-fund accounting and financial reporting standards that are designed to boost the disclosure of public pension liabilities but are proving to be controversial.

WASHINGTON — Municipal market participants should not expect the Treasury Department to simply rubber-stamp the existing tax-exempt bond rules for issue price when it comes to Build America Bonds, a Treasury official told bond lawyers at a recent meeting.

SAN FRANCISCO — Industry experts echoed concerns Wednesday about regulatory changes in the municipal bond industry and the possible impact the changes may have in the coming weeks and months.

Despite recent warnings from some financial experts that the ongoing financial troubles of state and local governments will lead to municipal bond defaults, state credits remain much more stable than corporate credits, Moody’s Investors Service said Wednesday.

City tax revenues are following the lead of state tax revenues, showing record-breaking declines that are not expected to improve this year or next, according to an annual report released Wednesday by the National League of Cities.

WASHINGTON — The Treasury Department wants to hear from the public about the form issuers must file to recover excess amounts of arbitrage they rebated to the federal government.

Residents of five states with fiscal challenges would rather lawmakers continue to cut spending or raise taxes than borrow to cover short-term budget deficits, according to a report issued Tuesday by the Pew Center on the States and the Public Policy Institute of ­California.

WASHINGTON — Market participants are sharply divided on the Municipal Securities ­Rulemaking Board’s draft proposal to prohibit dealers from underwriting new negotiated or competitive bond issues if they served as the issuer’s financial adviser on the transaction.

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service has told the Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority that $3.5 million of development revenue bonds it issued in 2005 to finance a manufacturing facility could be ­taxable.

The House last week approved a bill that would allow state transportation departments and other tolling entities to offer discounted tolls to residents and nearby commuters, as individuals challenge the discounts in at least three lawsuits against tolling agencies.

WASHINGTON — The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board announced the members of its new, majority-public board Friday, hours after it proposed a series of large fee increases to defray the technology costs for its EMMA site as well as expenses tied to the regulation of municipal advisers under the Dodd-Frank Act.

The National Congress of American Indians is urging the Treasury Department to revoke the burdensome “essential governmental function” test for tribal tax-exempt financings, as well as allow tribes to take advantage of private-activity bonds and use federal guarantees.

Congress and the Obama administration would be wasting an opportunity to revive infrastructure if they set up a national infrastructure bank and its investment-selection process the same way that existing programs are structured, an economic analyst said here Friday morning.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is preparing a proposal for a multi-year transportation bill that will talk about the importance of developing “institutional capacity” to support a national high-speed rail network, a federal rail official revealed Wednesday night at a conference here.

WASHINGTON — The Securities and Exchange Commission late Thursday signed off on rule changes that make the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board a majority-public self-regulator and allow it to temporarily expand to 21 from 15 members beginning Friday, the start of its new fiscal year.