1.148-10 (a)(4) Overburdening the tax-exempt market.

An action overburdens the tax-exempt bond market under paragraph (a)(2)(ii) of this section if it results in issuing more bonds, issuing bonds earlier, or allowing bonds to remain outstanding longer than is otherwise reasonably necessary to accomplish the governmental purposes of the bonds, based on all the facts and circumstances. Whether an action is reasonably necessary to accomplish the governmental purposes of the bonds depends on whether the primary purpose of the transaction is a bona fide governmental purpose (e.g., an issue of refunding bonds to achieve a debt service restructuring that would be issued independent of any arbitrage benefit). An important factor bearing on this determination is whether the action would reasonably be taken to accomplish the governmental purpose of the issue if the interest on the issue were not excludable from gross income under section 103(a) (assuming that the hypothetical taxable interest rate would be the same as the actual tax-exempt interest rate). Factors evidencing an overissuance include the issuance of an issue the proceeds of which are reasonably expected to exceed by more than a minor portion the amount necessary to accomplish the governmental purposes of the issue, or an issue the proceeds of which are, in fact, substantially in excess of the amount of sale proceeds allocated to expenditures for the governmental purposes of the issue. One factor evidencing an early issuance is the issuance of bonds that do not qualify for a temporary period under section 1.148-2(e)(2), (e)(3), or (e)(4). One factor evidencing that bonds may remain outstanding longer than necessary is a term that exceeds the safe harbors against the creation of replacement proceeds under section 1.148-1(c)(4)(i)(B). These factors may be outweighed by other factors, however, such as bona fide cost underruns or long-term financial distress.