The Internal Revenue Code and New York State law provide tax incentives to encourage and support projects that serve the public, promote economic development and advance charitable and public purposes. These incentives include tax-exempt bonds, tax credits and the abatement of real property, sales and use and mortgage recording taxes offered by Industrial Development Agencies (IDA). The team of professionals in the Bousquet Holstein Public Finance Group has broad and deep experience assisting our clients in delivering and taking advantage of these incentives.
Bonds and notes that comply with Section 103 of the Internal Revenue Code (tax-exempt bonds) provide municipalities, school districts, 501(c)(3) organizations, affordable housing and workforce housing providers and other eligible project owners with lower interest costs for capital improvement projects and equipment purchases than interest costs of commercial taxable financings. Our attorneys have years of transactional public finance, bond counsel, tax and disclosure experience, representing issuers, borrowers, underwriters, direct purchasers, financial advisors, credit enhancement providers and bond trustees in all aspects of tax-exempt bond transactions, private placements and public offerings. We also assist clients in taking advantage of other economic development incentives including federal Opportunity Zone investments, low income housing tax credits, New York State Brownfields Cleanup Program tax credits and other federal and State incentives.
In tax-exempt bond transactions, we collaborate with our clients to obtain the public approvals; structure the cash flow, debt service, collateral and covenants; and ensure compliance with the requirements of the Internal Revenue Code and State law. When serving as bond counsel to municipal, local development corporations (LDC), IDAs and State issuers, our attorneys draft public hearing notices, resolutions, indentures and other financing documents, deliver the opinion of bond counsel and coordinate and conduct the closing.
With our bank clients in the direct purchase of tax-exempt revenue bonds issued for 501(c)(3) borrowers, we perform due diligence, negotiate and draft continuing covenants agreements and security documents and advance the financing to closing. Our goal is to assist our bank clients in achieving a financing that is compliant with bank requirements, closes quickly and exceeds their borrowers’ expectations.
The New York Industrial Development Agency Act provides eligible projects with financial assistance in the form of exemptions from real property tax, sales and use tax and mortgage recording tax. The Bousquet Holstein Public Finance team has deep experience working with IDAs in granting of financial assistance to qualified projects.
For IDA projects, we support our IDA clients in their efforts to promote economic development by working with them in analyzing projects for eligibility, preparing the necessary public notices, structuring payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) agreements and negotiating, documenting and closing “straight lease” transactions.
After closing, our attorneys advise issuers, conduit borrowers and their financial advisors on complying with continuing disclosure obligations and post-issuance tax-exempt bond compliance. Our experience includes the representation of issuers in examinations by the Internal Revenue Service. We advise our IDA and LDC clients on day-to-day operations, policies and governance including compliance with the Public Authorities Law, the General Municipal Law and the latest pronouncements and audit findings of the New York State Authorities Budget Office (ABO) and Office of the State Comptroller (OSC). We represent our clients in audits and inquiries by the ABO and OSC.
Our Public Finance Practice Group collaborates with our colleagues in the Economic Development, Real Estate, Municipal Law, Not-for-Profit and Brownfields Practice Groups to identify all available benefits for our projects, to identify and address issues early in the transaction and to ensure the process to reach closing exceeds our client’s expectations.
Types of Public Finance work we do:
- IDA Straight Lease