The IRS has extended to July 15, 2020 the deadline for certain time-sensitive actions for tax-exempt bonds, including filing Form 8038 and paying rebate, if the deadline originally fell on or after April 1, 2020 and before July 15, 2020.… Continue Reading
Yes, The Thing touches everything. COVID-19 affects the muni bond world in some fairly obvious ways. The general mandate is “everybody do less.” Decreasing activity in general translates to decreased business revenues and decreased tax revenues, which means less money available to repay bonds. This has set the disclosure world ablaze, as securities lawyers ponder … Continue Reading
Timing, as they say, is everything. The tax-exempt bond rules are full of deadlines and sunsets, both before and after the issue date and before and after the project is finished. Click above for a diagram of how some of these rules work together. It’s by no means exhaustive, but certainly exhausting. Maybe you’ll find it … Continue Reading
The “reasonable expectations” approach to determining the issue price of a tax-advantaged bond[1] has been the law since 1989. On June 7, it is scheduled to join Betamax tapes and parachute pants as another relic of that bygone decade. Barring intervention (either Divine or as part of the President’s executive order to undo recent regulations … Continue Reading
‘I meant by “impenetrability” that we’ve had enough of that subject, and it would be just as well if you’d mention what you mean to do next, as I suppose you don’t mean to stop here all the rest of your life.’ ‘That’s a great deal to make one word mean,’ Alice said in a … Continue Reading
From time to time, issuers will use bond proceeds to make grants to accomplish a governmental purpose. For example, a State bond issuer may make grants to various counties and cities to help with the cost of local transportation improvements. Under the arbitrage regulations (Reg. 1.148-6(d)(4)), the bond proceeds are treated as spent once an issuer … Continue Reading
On July 18, 2016, the Treasury Department published final regulations on non-issue price arbitrage restrictions (the “Final Regulations”) in the Federal Register. The Final Regulations finalize regulations proposed in 2007 and 2013 (collectively, the “Proposed Regulations”). Click here for a copy of the Final Regulations, and read below for a high-level summary of them. We … Continue Reading
At least from this practitioner’s perspective, in the earlier days of IRS bond audits, there were substantial inconsistencies in IRS practices. Different documents were requested by the examining agents, different tax-exemption requirements were reviewed, and different positions were taken with respect to those requirements. And this was the case taking into consideration the various audit … Continue Reading
The IRS published final regulations on November 13, 2014, governing claims for refund of arbitrage rebate overpayments. The final regulations do three main things. First, they set a two-year statute of limitations on requesting refunds, running from the final rebate computation date. Second, they provide that if you file a refund request, the IRS can … Continue Reading
New private letter rulings are here! The IRS released two new private letter rulings. Neither of them is earth-shattering. In the first, PLR 201445002, the IRS ruled that an authority created by a tribal government is a political subdivision so that it can issue tax-advantaged bonds. In the second, PLR 201445007, the IRS granted a school district … Continue Reading
