On November 4, 2020, we all thought that the COVID-19 pandemic was going to be long over by now. We certainly did not think we were going to get so far down the Greek alphabet of variants of this virus. And, this author certainly did not think that she was going to have to keep … Continue Reading
Remember earlier this year when the novelty of working from home hadn’t worn off, when every day wasn’t Groundhog Day, when we hadn’t run out of Netflix to watch, and when we were all concerned about how to satisfy the in-person TEFRA hearing requirement for tax-exempt private activity bonds in the midst of a pandemic … Continue Reading
The most recent partial shutdown of the federal government has halted many operations of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, including those of the Internal Revenue Service. The shutdown has, however, evidently left untrammeled the Treasury Department’s ability to promulgate regulations. On Friday, December 28, the Treasury released final regulations under Internal Revenue Code Section … Continue Reading
As readers of this blog know, the version of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that was passed by the House of Representatives would not have allowed any private activity bond (including any qualified 501(c)(3) bond) to be issued as a tax-exempt bond after December 31, 2017. The version of the Tax Cuts and Jobs … Continue Reading
Happy New Year to all. When we last spoke, we were all breathing a sigh of relief that tax-exempt private activity bonds were spared the sword in the final tax reform legislation, and we poured out a little eggnog for our old friend, the tax-exempt advance refunding bond, gone too soon. But based on comments from … Continue Reading
The title of this post is taken from an observation that a client once made when the strictures of the notice, hearing, and approval requirements set forth in Internal Revenue Code Section 147(f), which with limited exceptions apply to all issues of tax-exempt private activity bonds, worked to prevent a hoped-for use of proceeds of … Continue Reading
The new Congressional session is heating up, and we’ll cover two new pieces of proposed legislation below. For the first time in several years, we can avoid giving the usual disclaimer that any new piece of legislation is “likely going nowhere.” Tax reform appears to be a real possibility for the first time in many … Continue Reading
That is, according to certain U.S. lawmakers, who believe that private colleges and universities with 501(c)(3) status that have at least a $1 billion endowment should be subject to some extra rules and regulations. If these well-endowed private colleges and universities fail to abide by such extra rules and regulations, under the proposed legislation (which … Continue Reading
Every year, the National Association of Bond Lawyers (“NABL”) hosts the Tax and Securities Law Institute (“TSLI”), which is an advanced conference with various workshops related to pressing issues confronting tax and securities lawyers in the public finance arena. Essentially, the annual TSLI is like Chrismukkah for tax and securities lawyers. This year’s meeting … Continue Reading
Over the past few weeks, we have written multiple posts (see here, here, and here) on the recently promulgated Final Treasury Regulations governing, among other things, allocating proceeds of tax-exempt bonds and other sources to projects that involve both qualified and private uses. As we’ve described before, the new Regulations allow issuers and 501(c)(3) borrowers … Continue Reading
The IRS recently issued TAM 201544025 (“TAM”) in which it held that a 501(c)(3) organization’s activities constituted unrelated business taxable income (“UBTI”). As explained in more detail below, UBTI may negatively impact the tax-exempt character of 501(c)(3) bonds. If you are a regular reader of this Public Finance Tax Blog, you already know that in … Continue Reading
On October 27, 2015, the Treasury Department published final regulations on the allocation of tax-exempt bond proceeds to mixed use projects and related topics (the “Allocation Regulations”). The Allocation Regulations finalize proposed regulations that were issued in 2006 and 2003. Click here for a copy of the Allocation Regulations, and read below for a high-level summary … Continue Reading
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) imposes several new requirements on charitable hospitals. Charitable hospitals that benefit from tax-exempt qualified 501(c)(3) bonds were concerned that violations of these ACA requirements would either result in a loss of the charitable hospital’s 501(c)(3) status, or result in excessive private business use, either of which would … Continue Reading
The IRS has issued Announcement 2015-02, which allows issuers of qualified 501(c)(3) bonds to pay a small penalty to protect the tax status of the bonds where the conduit borrower lost its 501(c)(3) status because it failed to file returns with the IRS for three straight years. It’s welcome relief from a particularly nasty rule, but … Continue Reading
