Muni Bond Demand Trends Shift Under New Tax Rules
Authors & Contributors
U.S. Municipal Bond Team
The recent overhaul of the U.S. tax code effective beginning 2018 has made an early impact on the demand landscape within the $3.8 trillion municipal bond market. Under the new rules, one of the most significant changes is a drop in the corporate tax rate to 21% from 35%, which makes tax exempt municipal bonds less appealing for institutional investors such as banks and property and casualty (P&C) companies. In fact, recent data from the Federal Reserve “Fed” showing the quarterly changes in municipal holdings confirmed that banks reversed a recent buying trend and reduced holdings of municipal debt while P&Cs, somewhat surprisingly, held their exposure steady.
On January 31, 2018, The Boston Company and Standish merged into Mellon Capital to form a combined entity, BNY Mellon Asset Management North America Corporation. Effective January 2, 2019, this entity was renamed Mellon Investments Corporation.
