Tax

Taking advantage of historically low interest rates and accelerating infrastructure projects, America's 30 largest cities refinanced $13.9 billion in existing debt in 2012, the largest amount in two decades, a Pew Charitable Trusts report found.

Moody's said a recent IRS ruling affecting the Village Center Community Development District's tax-exempt status will not impact the agency's ratings on other district ratings.

In an action that could affect numerous transactions across the country, the Internal Revenue Service has determined that revenue bonds issued by a New Jersey authority for the Deborah Heart and Lung Center are taxable because the borrower entered into a total return swap.

Tax law changes allowing the tax credits of tax-credit bonds to be stripped and sold separately to investors have increased the risk for improper or fraudulent tax credit claims, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration said in a June 26 report.

Nearly a dozen state and local groups are urging Congress to restore significant cuts that were made to the clean water and drinking water state revolving fund programs in the latest appropriations bill.

Leaders from a coalition of more than 60 state and local groups and associations met with Reps. Randy Hultgreen and Dutch Ruppersberger to thank them for their continued support in preserving tax-exemption for municipal bonds.

If the top individual tax rate were lowered to 25% from the current 39.6%, as favored by Republicans, and the alternative minimum tax were repealed, it would cost $3.77 trillion over 10 years, a new Joint Committee on Taxation report said Wednesday.

The National Association of Water Companies is urging the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service to change the remedial actions that must be taken when bonds no longer meet private activity bond restrictions, claiming the current ones deter or burden public-private partnerships.

President Obama described a pro-growth tax reform and jobs package during a speech in Chattanooga, Tenn., on Tuesday, but many of the municipal bond-related measures proposed were ones he unveiled earlier.

Louisiana is relying on revenue generated from a two-month tax amnesty period beginning in September to help balance the fiscal 2014 budget.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, under fire for a plan to keep committee members' proposals for overhauling the Internal Revenue Code secret, may release portions of the legislation after the August recess.

The Internal Revenue Service is auditing $13.2 million of certificates of participation issued in 2009 by the Douglas County School District, No. RE1 in Colorado.

Congress should consider eliminating tax exemption and privatizing infrastructure to subject it to property taxes in order to broaden the tax base, a director from the right-leaning think tank, Cato Institute, said this week.

Rep. Richard Neal, D-Ma., is planning to unveil an "aggressive" tax reform and infrastructure proposal at the end of September that would renew the Build America Bond program and other tax credit bonds.

The Alaska Student Loan Corporation is challenging the Internal Revenue Service's decision that $529.1 million of education loan revenue bonds are not tax exempt.

States can adopt several practices to help municipalities in financial distress avoid having to file for bankruptcy protection, The Pew Charitable Trusts said in a report released Tuesday.

A coalition of dealers, issuers and other muni market participants have sent a letter to Senate Finance Committee leaders urging them to preserve the federal tax exemption for municipal bonds.

Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., said Tuesday in a speech in the Senate that the committee will vote on a tax reform bill this fall.

The Allegheny County, Pa., Sanitary Authority has agreed to pay $70,000 to settle Internal Revenue Service charges that it violated yield restriction requirements on an advance refunding escrow for $260.3 million of bonds issued in 2005.

The Internal Revenue Service's Office of Appeals is recommending that the agency issue a new determination letter in order to reinstate the tax exemption of approximately $8.5 million charter school project revenue bonds issued for the LEAP Academy University Charter School in 2003.