Tax

Tempe, Ariz.’s property tax rate could go up to $2.16 per $100 of assessed valuation from the current $1.79 per $100 under a plan being considered later this week by the City Council.

WASHINGTON — The chairman of a House Ways and Means Committee panel will hold a hearing on June 8 to examine a host of expiring tax provisions while the panel’s ranking Democrat called for renewal of the Build America Bonds program as part of a larger jobs bill.

The Internal Revenue Service and the Treasury Department are seeking public comments on the arbitrage restrictions that pertain to tax-exempt bonds.

State aid and property taxes are dropping simultaneously for the first time since 1980, while demand for government services continue to rise, according to a report published by the Pew Center on the States Friday.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s proposal to extend the Bush-era tax cuts for households with incomes earning up to $1 million annually would have a marginal impact on municipal bond demand, market experts said.

CHICAGO -- If it passes, a referendum that would abolish North Dakota’s property taxes would pose a significant fiscal threat to local governments and would also raise their borrowing costs, Moody’s Investors Service said in a report out Thursday.

Action by the Idaho Legislature during the 2012 session made 48 auditing and tax collector positions permanent and made state tax laws more stringent, a local newspaper reported.

Identical bills proposed by House and Senate lawmakers to provide rules of the road for taxing digital goods and services would immediately and significantly reduce state and local tax collections, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities warns in a report.

CHICAGO — The Illinois Senate passed legislation Tuesday raising the state's cigarette tax by $1 as part of a $2.7 billion Medicaid reform package aimed at easing the program's strain on state finances.

The Internal Revenue Service is auditing $3.19 billion of gas project revenue bonds that the Tennessee Energy Acquisition Corp. issued in 2006.

CHICAGO — The Illinois House approved a bill Friday that raises the cigarette tax by $1 and establishes charity care standards for the state's nonprofit hospitals in order to preserve their property tax exemption.

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service has published a tax law compliance guide for issuers in conduit bond transactions.

Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin said last week she would not call a special legislative session to resolve a dispute between House and Senate leaders over cuts in the top income tax rate.

Federal lawmakers and their staffs are wrong to think that tax-credit bonds could cost-effectively replace tax-exempt municipal bonds as a source of financing for state and local governments' projects, Citi said in a recent report.

Ascension Parish, La., may ask voters in November to approve an increase in the parish sales tax to support $80 million of revenue bonds for road projects.

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.

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.

Moody’s Investors Service said last week that the risk profile of New York local governments’ debt — other than school districts — subject to the new property tax cap remains unchanged.

New Jersey’s tax collections for fiscal 2012 are up from the same period last year, but April results were below expectations, the Treasury Department said last week.