HunterMaclean’s commercial finance team provides representation to prospective issuers of municipal securities and other parties to public finance transactions. Our clients include nonprofit institutions, public agencies and authorities, credit enhancers, commercial banks, and borrowers. We have substantial experience as disclosure counsel, special tax counsel, and borrower’s counsel.

The Firm has organized its lawyers into various practice groups, each of which is designed to handle the specialized legal needs of particular types of clients and/or the unique problems that clients may encounter in a particular type of transaction. Our commercial finance lawyers handle the full range of commercial financing issues, including the legal needs of our tax-exempt organization clients, and provide legal advice to all other clients who may be involved in tax-exempt financings.

Public authorities and tax-exempt organizations

HunterMaclean serves as counsel to governmental entities and exempt organizations in connection with all forms of finance-related transactions. Engagements often involve the issuance of taxable and/or tax-exempt debt. In that capacity, we routinely counsel clients on matters such as compliance with state and municipal law issues, state and federal income tax issues, credit issues, compliance and enforcement actions related to the issuance of tax-exempt debt, and other matters governed by applicable federal and state laws.

Experience as borrower’s counsel

Municipal finance transactions often are undertaken to provide economic incentives to private businesses through a variety of “conduit” financing techniques. In addition, our tax-exempt organization clients rely heavily on tax-exempt obligations to finance their long-term capital requirements. As counsel to these “borrowers” in tax-exempt private activity or conduit bond issues, we regularly advise our clients with respect to their alternatives and assist them in securing tax-exempt financing through various governmental issuers. We also represent our clients in connection with securing property tax abatement, sales and use tax exemptions, tax credits, and a variety of other economic incentives and benefits available through governmental issuers. In addition, we regularly work with bond counsel and underwriters on behalf of borrowers as part of the financing team.

Experience as special tax counsel

We have represented numerous clients before the National Office of the Internal Revenue Service on audits and tax-exempt financing matters. We also have counseled and represented before the IRS numerous tax-exempt organizations. We have considerable experience in the classification of organizations as tax-exempt under Section 501(c) of the Internal Revenue Code and the review and preparation of applications for IRS determination letters on tax-exempt status. We have also worked with our tax-exempt clients in the development and implementation of bond compliance programs in connection with the issuance of tax-exempt bonds.