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.
Helping Public Entities Navigate the COVID-19 Financial Crisis
As we’ve said, The Thing touches everything. Indeed, to quote No Country For Old Men: “It’s the dismal tide. It’s not the one thing.” State and local governments are no exception. Our public policy and public finance groups have a four-point action plan for state and local governments to start to pick up the pieces. We’re ready to help.
NABL Asks IRS to Help with TEFRA, Debt Repurchase Problems
NABL has asked the IRS to issue a Notice that would allow issuers to hold TEFRA public hearings for private activity bonds by phone and that would allow issuers to purchase and sit on their own debt through the end of the COVID-19 crisis without extinguishing the debt, even if the issuer doesn’t use its best efforts to remarket it.
The text of the proposed Notice is available here. It remains to be seen whether the IRS will make significant changes to the Notice before adopting it or some other form of relief, but some highlights of the request are as follows.
Requests for Muni Bond Tax Relief – You Can Help
With stories about stimulus and relief from COVID-19 swirling, municipal bond industry groups are springing into action to help Congress and Treasury help us all. NABL sent a letter on Sunday to Congress and Treasury, asking for broad relief on a number of tax topics affected by COVID-19. The request is stated in broad strokes (broad strokes, as in “home run strokes” – be sure to read it), and more details on the specifics are sure to follow.
Importantly, you (yes, You) can help. Please forward the letter (which is linked above and linked again here, to your Senator and Congressperson and request your colleagues and contacts to do the same. You can find your Senator (or someone else’s) here and your Congressperson here. As we noted in our post last week, COVID-19 touches all sorts of tax rules and could cause all sorts of mayhem. It looks like relief is on its way – but, just like we did in 2017, we need to make our voices heard.
While you’re here, check out Squire Patton Boggs’s COVID-19 hub here, for coverage of all kinds.
Talking about The Thing
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 what to say to the market about the pandemic. That very practical question is far beyond the bounds of this blog and will be dealt with ad nauseum elsewhere, such as this piece in The Bond Buyer.
There are a few less obvious ways that the disease will affect the tax requirements for tax-advantaged bonds. We’ll look at them in a series of posts. Click through for a teaser. (I guess that makes the previous sentence a meta-teaser?)
Negative Interest Rates x Negative Bond Yields = Positive Arbitrage?
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke recently advised that the Fed should maintain “constructive ambiguity” about the possibility of taking the Federal funds rate below 0% in an effort to simulate the U.S. economy during the next recession. Given that current short-term interest rates in the United States are at near-historic lows, many believe that it is inevitable that U.S. monetary policy will replicate the negative interest rates employed in Japan and Europe when the next recession hits. One economist suggests that negative interest rates and negative bond yields (more on that below) are the inexorable conclusion of a trend that began in the late 1400s. We are on notice.
If the Fed experiments with a Bret Easton Ellis-inspired monetary policy and takes the Federal funds rate to less than zero,[1] what are the potential consequences for issuers of tax-exempt bonds? For some speculation (and to see the text of the first footnote), hit the jump.
When Summer Reading and Public Finance Tax Intersect – Tax-Exempt Bonds, Pop Culture, and the Town of Windthorst
Early in my career, I learned to dread telling people that I was a lawyer because when I explained the niche practice of public finance tax law, their eyes started to get sleepy, then their eyes started to glaze over. That was usually when I would blurt out “I help finance airports, hospitals, schools, and infrastructure across the country.” So when I came across the D Magazine article, The Tiny Town Bankrolling Texas Institutions during my summer beach reading,[1] I nearly spilled my Aperol Spritz[2] all over my Excel spreadsheets.
Moving on from LIBOR
The IRS has issued proposed regulations that allow issuers to replace LIBOR rates associated with their bonds and swaps without triggering a reissuance of the bonds or a deemed termination of the swaps. The replacement rate must be a “qualified rate,” which includes the Secured Overnight Financing Rate (“SOFR”). A rate isn’t a “qualified rate” unless the fair market value of the bond or swap is the same before and after the replacement, taking into account any one-time payment made in connection with the switch. Although they’re only proposed regulations, issuers can apply them immediately.
Taxable Advance Refunding Bonds and the World’s Most Boring Ice Cream Cone
Taxable debt tempts us to put the Internal Revenue Code back on the library shelf and the tax lawyers back into their pen. But if you use taxable debt to refund tax-exempt debt, or if you might ever refund that taxable debt with tax-exempt debt, then we regret to inform you that we ought to be involved. In a series of posts, we’re going to take a look at some of the questions and complications that arise when issuers and borrowers incorporate straight taxable debt into the same lineage as tax-exempt debt. First up: a taxable advance refunding of tax-exempt bonds.
It might seem odd that an issuer would consider issuing taxable debt, which generally has a higher interest rate than tax-exempt debt, to fund a long-term escrow at the low reinvestment rates that have prevailed for the past 15 years (what fancy folks call “negative arbitrage”) to retire tax-exempt debt. In certain rate environments, such as the present, where shorter-term interest rates applicable to refunding escrow securities are almost equal to the longer-term interest rates that apply to the refunding bonds, it can make sense. The prohibition against the issuance of tax-exempt debt to advance refund tax-exempt bonds enhances the incentive to issue taxable advance refunding bonds in this type of interest rate market.
When you’re assembling the working group to issue the taxable advance refunding bonds, you might be tempted to ignore the tax-exempt bond rules and the public finance tax lawyers on your team. Don’t. Let’s discuss why.[1]
Senate Carbon Capture Bill Gains a House Companion
Earlier this month, we described Senate Bill 1763, which would authorize a new type of exempt facility bond to be issued for “qualified carbon capture facilities.” Well, on July 19, 2019, freshman House Republican Tim Burchett of Tennessee proposed the Carbon Capture Improvement Act, H.R. 3861, the text of which is identical to the Senate Bill.[1] However, unlike the Senate Bill that has bipartisan sponsorship, Burchett is (for now) the sole sponsor of the companion House Bill.
This isn’t the only carbon capture-related bill with both Senate and House support. The Senate has already passed the Utilizing Significant Emissions with Innovated Technologies Act, nicknamed the “USE IT Act.” The USE IT Act supports the development of carbon capture technology through the establishment of: technology prizes, research and development programs to promote existing and new technologies for the transformation of carbon dioxide generated by industrial processes, a carbon capture, utilization and sequestration report, permitting guidance, and regional permitting task force, among other things, research into carbon dioxide utilization and direct air capture, to facilitate the permitting and development of carbon capture, utilization, and sequestration projects and carbon dioxide pipelines. The USE IT Act similarly has a House counterpart, H.R. 1166, which has been referred to the House Subcommittee on Water, Oceans, and Wildlife. With carbon capture technology on Congress’ mind, and companion bills for tax-exempt bonds for carbon capture facilities pending in the House and Senate, the chances for a legislative change seem to be growing stronger.
[1] If you’re one of those people needs to see it to believe it, click here to see a blackline of the House Bill against the Senate Bill.
