Tax

As cities continue to struggle meeting public pension obligations, many are requiring employees to contribute more or turning to less costly defined benefit plans, a report by the U.S. Conference of Mayors found.

If the tax exemption for municipal bonds had been repealed in 2012, up to 892,000 jobs. $46.9 billion of labor income and $71 billion annually in gross domestic product would have been lost, according to a new U.S. Conference of Mayors report.

Within the last month at least eight issuers indicated they will likely take advantage of its extraordinary redemption provisions to refund Build America Bonds due to reduced interest subsidy payments triggered by sequestration.

The Senate Finance Committee released a paper that contains tax reform options for non-income tax issues and related reforms, including a securities transaction excise tax on bonds and other debt.

The Louisiana Public Facilities Authority has disclosed that the Internal Revenue Service began auditing $240.43 million of its bonds in March 2012, but closed the audit with no change to the tax-exempt status of the bonds in February of this year.

The Internal Revenue Service's adverse ruling about the Village Center Community Development District will not impact other Village CDD bonds that Fitch rates.

Counties would have paid an extra $9 billion in debt service fees if municipal bonds were taxable over the last 15 years and approximately $3.2 billion if a 28% cap were imposed, according to a new study by the National Association of Counties.

Higher revenue collections have boosted the short-term outlook for states but the slow economic recovery and stubbornly high unemployment have many states worried that the fiscal improvements may be temporary.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board is urging investors and dealers to examine the redemption provisions of Build America Bonds and other direct-pay bonds so they can determine if the bonds' market value could be affected by a redemption stemming from a sequestration-mandated cut in subsidy payments to the issuer.

The House Ways and Means Committee chairman began meeting one-on-one last week with individual committee members to get feedback on the next steps for comprehensive tax reform, but admitted there is a significant amount of work to still before passing legislation this year.

Two-and-a-half years after financial banking analyst Meredith Whitney wreaked havoc in the municipal market by erroneously predicting hundreds of billions of dollars of defaults, she now says she never focused on munis.

Overall state tax collections continued to increase during the first quarter of this year, driven mostly by strong growth in personal income tax collections, continuing improvement in the economy and a large tax increase in California, the Rockefeller Institute of Government concluded in a report issued Wednesday.

In a precedent-setting decision that could have major ramifications for issuers, the Internal Revenue Service has ruled a Florida Community Development District is not a political subdivision that can issue tax-exempt bonds.

Members of the Government Finance Officers Association's debt committee voiced strong concern Saturday that the Internal Revenue Service's recent white paper on problematic bond transactions could be codified into requirements for the municipal bond market.

The Internal Revenue Service issued two notices on Friday to provide bond-related emergency housing relief for victims of the severe storms and tornadoes that occurred in Oklahoma between May 18 and May 27.

The Internal Revenue Service is auditing $35.3 million of Series A clean water revenue bonds issued by the Colorado Water Resources and Power Development Authority in 2007.

Growth in outstanding state debt slowed for the third consecutive year to 1.3% in 2012 and is the slowest increase in debt in over 20 years, primarily due to concerns about the economy and federal fiscal policy, a new Moody's Investors Service report said.

Two lawmakers are circulating a bipartisan letter to colleagues asking for their support in preserving the tax-exempt status of municipal bonds.

Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., has introduced a bipartisan bill that would allow states ravaged by Hurricane Sandy to issue billions of dollars of private activity bonds outside federal and state volume caps to pay for the rebuilding of docks, commuting facilities, multi-family housing and infrastructure facilities.

The Internal Revenue Service is auditing $11.04 million of educational facilities revenue bonds that Sarasota County, Fla. issued in 2010, the proceeds of which were lent to the nonprofit Sarasota School of Arts and Sciences, Inc. to finance charter school facilities.