WASHINGTON – The Internal Revenue Service is seeking someone with tax-exempt bond experience to serve on its 15-member Advisory Committee for the Tax Exempt and Government Entities Division.
The purpose of the advisory committee is to provide a public forum for discussion between IRS officials and representatives of the five areas within the jurisdiction of the Tax Exempt and Government Entities: tax-exempt bonds; federal, state and local governments; Indian tribal governments; exempt organizations; and employee plans.
The group works with IRS officials to identify and research various issues and to provide reports with recommendations to the agency’s commission at a meeting scheduled every June.
The IRS has provided
Until last month, the ACT had three members with tax-exempt experience: Floyd Newton, 3rd, a partner at King & Spalding in Atlanta; William Johnson, managing director for First Southwest Asset Management in Dallas; and David Danenfelzer, senior director for development finance with the multifamily and single family development group of the Texas State Affordable Housing Corp. in Austin.
Newton’s term expired in June. The IRS is replacing him. Johnson and Danenfelzer will remain on the committee and their terms will not expire until June 2018.
Johnson manages, mentors and provides strategic planning for 22 rebate professionals who serve clients nationwide, according to the IRS. His client relationship responsibilities include rebate liability planning and implementation of tax law changes for tax-exempt obligation issuers. He is responsible for developing and implementing post issuance rebate compliance policies and procedures for arbitrage clients including nonprofit, state and local government, and private activity issuers.
Danenfelzer is a community development professional committed to advancing the fields of nonprofit management, community planning and public finance. He helped Texas State Affordable increase its investment in affordable housing, redesigned its multifamily bond finance programs, and created the first statewide affordable housing land bank.
The ACT underwent a major change last year. The IRS, which has been hit with budget cuts and dwindling personnel, announced in January 2016 that it was reducing ACT to 15 members from 21 members. Agency officials said the ACT's focus going forward would be on general tax administration issues. That's a huge change from before when the group issued specific reports with recommendations for tax-exempt bonds, such as how to improve the use of tax-exempt bonds by Indian tribal governments.
Last year, the ACT produced only three reports instead of one in each area. None of them were related to tax-exempt bonds. The reports dealt with Federal Insurance Contributions Act replacement plan requirements, the future of the ACT subgroup, and the expansion of online accounts for tax-exempt entities.
