WASHINGTON -- Treasury continues to support extending tax law provisions that are due to expire next months, including popular bonasure, but has been told by industry officials that a short delay will not hurt the financial markets, a Treasury official said yesterday.
"We've been told that an effort to deal with them this fall may be sufficient," Fred T. Goldberg, Treasury's assistant secretary for tax policy, told those attending a luncheon at the U.S. Chamber of Congress here.
Tax law provisions providing tax exemption for mortgager revenue bonds and small-issue industrial development bonds are due to expire on June 30. The Bush administration has supported extending tax exemption for mortgage revenue bonds and small-issue development bonds for first-time farmers.
Mr. Goldberg told chamber officials he believes the revenues can be found to pay for these extensions, as well as for a continuation of unemployment benefits and new tax initiatives for urban areas in the wake of the recent riots in Los Angeles.
"The question is whether the political process will permit us "to attain these short-term goals, he said.
Mr. Goldberg said the biggest challenge for Treasury is to make the tax system more workable. He said the department's announcement of its priority regulatory projects for 1992 is a step in that direction. The list, he said, will "permit us to be held accountable" for completing key projects and also will "give the public ownership of our priorities."
He said after the meeting that Treasury will issue guidance this year on how the Supreme Court's decision in Cottage Savings Association v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue affects the reissuance of municipal bonds and other tax law issues.
He had said at the luncheon that Treasury is working on an interpretation of that decision that will prevent taxpayers from a "hair trigger" recognition of either losses or income.
