The National Association of Bond Lawyers submitted eight legislative proposals to Treasury on August 22 with the stated purpose of improving the efficiency of tax-advantaged financing of much-needed public infrastructure projects (here is a link to the proposals). The proposals would broaden the availability and simplify the existing forms of tax-exempt bonds as well as create new forms of tax-advantaged bonds. One of the new forms would be Enhanced Infrastructure Bonds (“EIBs”), which could just as easily be called new and improved Build America Bonds (“BABs”). EIBs and direct-pay BABs share many characteristics, including generating federal payments to the issuer while paying taxable interest to holders, with the differences intended to make EIBs an even more attractive financing option and to eliminate the shortcomings of BABs that were discovered over the course of issuing more than $185 billion of direct-pay BABs during the brief period they were available – April 2009 through December 2010. The similarities and differences in EIBs and BABs are identified and explained below.
The Public Finance Tax Blog
By Bob Eidnier on August 31, 2017
Squire Patton Boggs