Tax

A Superior Court judge on Wednesday denied a request for an injunction from a San Diego hotel workers union seeking to block a vote on a special tax to fund the San Diego Convention Center expansion.

In a rare sign of bipartisanship, the Democrat who chairs the Senate Budget Committee and a Republican agreed Thursday that curbing or eliminating tax expenditures should be the centerpiece of a tax-reform package, which is needed to the reduce the nation's federal deficit and improve anemic economic growth.

The Idaho House Revenue and Taxation Committee on Tuesday approved HB 563, a measure that permanently cuts individual and corporate income taxes for top earners.

Cook County Commissioner and former Chicago Alderman William Beavers was indicted last week on three counts of filing false income tax returns and one count of endeavoring to obstruct and impede the Internal Revenue Service.

The Little Rock, Ark., Board of Directors approved a plan last week that would allocate revenues from a sales tax increase toward capital projects in the city.

Municipal bond insurer Ambac Financial Group is offering the Internal Revenue Service $102 million to settle the agency's $800 million claim against it.

A spectre that periodically haunts the municipal bond market looms once again: the threat to alter the market's sacrosanct tax-exempt status.

Critics of Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman’s tax plan said last week the proposal would lead to a $660 million shortfall in the upcoming two-year budget cycle.

The Internal Revenue Service is auditing $346.6 million of general obligation refunding bonds unlimited tax series and $50.79 million of GO refunding bonds limited tax series issued by the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago in May 2006.

More than 75% of Shawnee, Okla., voters last week rejected proposed increases in their property and sales taxes to support $50 million of bonds for civic projects.

Seventeen muni groups are urging members of Congress to reject President Obama's proposal to place a 28% cap on the value of tax-exempt interest, warning it will hurt the market and that its retroactivity will reverse nearly 100 years of legislative history.

DALLAS — Oklahoma sales tax revenue hit a historic peak in January, bringing in $165 million to the general fund.

President Obama's $3.8 trillion fiscal 2013 budget alarmed the muni market by proposing to reduce the value of tax-exempt interest and other tax preferences to 28%.

Tulsa’s sales tax revenues were up 9.5% in December from 2010, Mayor Dewey Bartlett said last week.

The Internal Revenue Service has told the Nebraska Public Power District that $10 million of the $50.36 million of Build America Bonds it issued in June 2009 may not qualify for the 35% interest subsidy it receives from the Treasury Department because of a dispute over the issue price of the bonds.

The Hudson Yards Infrastructure Corp. learned that the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance has erroneously sent notices to state taxpayers who were holders of the corporation’s bonds, saying that all or a portion of the interest paid on the debt is subject to the state’s personal income tax.

While members of Congress have been loathe to take the politically unpopular step of raising the federal gas tax, which provides revenue for bond-financed roadwork and other highway projects, a number of states have increased their gas taxes during the past few years.

BRADENTON, Fla. — Facing a 25% shortfall in the general fund, Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley said during his state of the state address Tuesday night that he would not raise taxes.

WASHINGTON — As part of its initiative to gauge compliance with arbitrage requirements, the Internal Revenue Service is auditing $43.45 million of Series 2006 general obligation refunding bonds that were issued by the St. Vrain Valley, Colo., School District in April 2006 to advance refund its Series 1997 bonds.

The Georgia Legislature is considering a $300 million infusion of additional gas tax funds to shore up funding to build the first phase of the West by Northwest traffic-congestion relief project around Atlanta.