IRS Eyes Whether Hotel Deal Aided Developer Over Public, Experts Say

The Internal Revenue Service won’t say why it is investigating an unusual deal that raised millions of dollars to renovate the Statler Hotel downtown.But experts think they know what the IRS is looking at: Whether the deal involving taxpayer money improperly benefited a real-estate developer rather than the public.The inquiry, reported by The Dallas Morning News late last month, involves $26.5 million of tax-exempt municipal bonds sold in August for Mehrdad Moayedi’s redevelopment of the landmark hotel and adjoining old Dallas Central Library.To qualify for the federal tax break, tax-exempt bonds are supposed to pay for for projects that are in the public interest. Generally, only a fraction of the money they raise can go to private businesses, tax lawyers said. Borrowers — in this case, the developer — usually pay lower interest rates on tax-exempt bonds than on taxable ones.  Continue reading...