The noise that you just heard may be another blessed nail in the coffin of Treasury’s proposed regulations that would have made it more difficult for an entity to qualify as a political subdivision so that it can issue tax-exempt bonds on its own behalf. Treasury just issued Notice 2017-38, which sends 8 regulatory projects, including the proposed political subdivision regulations, to the President in response to his order to identify and pare back or eliminate regulations that add undue financial burden or undue complexity.
Issue Price Regulations Sneak Past the Guards
The fact that Treasury included the proposed political subdivision regulations among the list of burdensome regulations that are now on the chopping block will get all of the headlines, but there’s another story here, too. Treasury somehow concluded that the issue price regulations were not a “significant” tax regulation (apparently they aren’t regular readers of this blog). In other words, Treasury didn’t even consider whether the new issue price regulations might be burdensome. In fact, Treasury says that the issue price regulations were “minor or technical in nature,” and – you’ll love this – “generated minimal public comment.”
The Public Finance Tax Blog
by John W. Hutchinson
July 7 2017
Squire Patton Boggs