Regulation

In what could be a first of it’s kind action in the municipal bond market, the Internal Revenue Service has suspended tax-exempt bond attorney Michael W. McCall for at least 24 months from practicing before it for writing a false tax opinion.

In joint letter to legislators, trade associations ask that insurers be excluded from resolution funding.associations

Community bankers are close to winning a key change to the Senate regulatory reform bill that would require the government to base deposit insurance rates on assets instead of domestic deposits.

It is not often one hears someone nicknamed “Wild” Bill exhorting patience.

Bankers may be unable to stop a tax if it does get added to the legislation because Democrats view it as a way to ensure the reform bill saves the government money and Republicans consider it politically risky to oppose.

Maintaining a competitive environment is critical to the continuing development of new lifetime income solutions for employer-sponsored retirement plans, the SPARK Institute said in a joint letter to the Department of Labor and the Department of Treasury.

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal recently filed suit against a bank and local money manager who served as custodians for two feeder funds that invested with convicted Ponzi-schemer Bernie Madoff.

Large banks have repeatedly prevailed in battles to preserve federal preemption in Congress and the courts, but that victory string is likely to be broken by the regulatory reform bill being debated in the Senate this week.

The more things change, the more they remain the same. In the early 1980s, the nation faced a serious retirement challenge, with Social Security estimated to have unfunded liabilities of about $6 trillion and worries about whether the Greatest Generation would be able to afford its retirement.

In an ironic twist, the Fed Reserve — one of the most derided regulators for its failure to prevent the financial crisis — may emerge from regulatory reform with its bank supervisory powers intact and authority enhanced.