Tax

The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Internal Revenue Service announced yesterday they have agreed to work together more closely to monitor and regulate municipal bonds — another signal that federal regulators have elevated the priority of the muni market.

Two groups of tax attorneys last week urged the Treasury Department to modify its proposed regulations on bond-financed solid-waste disposal facilities to make sure they would cover all legitimate waste facilities.

WASHINGTON — Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Judd Gregg, R-N.H., said they included provisions to halt the issuance of tax-exempt bonds beginning in 2011 in their tax reform bill to make the tax code fairer for all investors and to help offset proposed revenue losers.

WASHINGTON — ­Municipal market participants are still weighing the implications of a bill that would eliminate tax-exempt bonds and shift the muni market wholesale to a tax-credit subsidy, with many warning it would hurt state and local governments still recovering from the recession.

New tax reform legislation unveiled Tuesday by Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Judd Gregg, R-N.H., would eliminate tax-exempt bonds beginning in 2011, change the tax exemption for state and local bonds to a tax credit, and prohibit the advance refunding of bonds.

The Internal Revenue Service’s attempt to provide answers to frequently asked questions about Build America Bonds led to even more questions last week, as bond attorneys worried that one of the answers appeared to ban any premium on BABs sold with “make-whole calls.”

INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — The Internal Revenue Service plans to audit some Build America Bond issues to determine if they meet the tax requirement on issue price, an agency official said here last week.

At least one Build America Bond issuer has had a subsidy payment reduced because it owed money to the federal government, and this "offset" system is entirely automated, market participants warned here yesterday.

The Internal Revenue Service yesterday published two new information forms with accompanying instructions for issuers of Build America Bonds and recovery zone economic development bonds, one of which provides for direct deposit of payments from the federal government.

WASHINGTON — Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Judd Gregg, R-N.H., plan to introduce bipartisan, comprehensive tax-reform legislation on Tuesday after the Senate returns from its recess.

The Internal Revenue Service has decided not to alter the tax-exempt status of $57.5 million of bonds issued in 2003 by the Illinois Health Facilities Authority, now the Illinois Finance Authority, after completing an audit that focused on two former board members who pleaded guilty to defrauding Rosalind Franklin University and orchestrating kickback schemes, the issuer disclosed last week.

WASHINGTON — The Treasury Department yesterday announced that it had allocated the second and final $1 billion tranche of tribal economic development bonds to 76 Indian tribes across the nation.

WASHINGTON — A draft version of a Senate jobs bill widely circulated Tuesday included provisions that would allow several tax-credit bonds to be treated like Build America Bonds through the end of 2010, with issuers receiving a direct subsidy payment from the federal government instead of providing investors with a tax credit.

In proposing to renew the Build America Bonds program, the Obama administration last week set an audacious goal: more benefit at the same cost.

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service is asking issuers of Build America Bonds and tax-credit bonds to weigh in on how much of a burden it is to file two new information returns for the bonds that will be released later this week.

WASHINGTON — The Securities and Exchange Commission wants to hire outside municipal market experts, including traders and investment bankers, to work in its reconstituted municipal and public pension fund enforcement unit, Elaine Greenberg said Friday.

Senate Banking Committee chairman Christopher Dodd, who said Friday he plans to move forward with a massive financial regulatory reform bill without Republican support, told federal regulators that he wants the bill to include language that would give the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board oversight of pension fund placement agents.

WASHINGTON — The House yesterday cleared legislation that would increase the debt limit by $1.9 billion to $14.3 trillion.

WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats yesterday said they plan on Monday to take up the first of a series of jobs bills, which will include expansion of the Build America Bonds and TIGER grant programs, an extension of the transportation law, and transportation and water infrastructure funding.

Senate Democrats plan to unveil a “jobs agenda” as early as this morning that would extend surface transportation programs for a year, expand the Build America Bonds program, and augment the popular TIGER discretionary transportation grant program.