Treasury Regulations · 26 CFR
§ 1.141-9. Unrelated or disproportionate use test.
Regulation text, no changes From the eCFR, current as of October 15, 2026. The eCFR is an authoritative but unofficial editorial compilation of the Code of Federal Regulations; the official text is the annual CFR on govinfo. Compare it with this section on ecfr.gov (external site) or the official annual CFR on govinfo (external site).
Regulation under 26 U.S.C. § 141
Cite as 26 CFR § 1.141-9
At a glance
Read from the text and its source citation. Not part of the regulation.
- Status
- In the current eCFR
- Issued
- January 16, 1997 by T.D. 8712
- Issued under
- 26 U.S.C. § 141
- Length
- 1,577 words · about 7 min to read
- Cross-references
- cites 1 Code section and 1 regulation; cited by 1
County X issues bonds with proceeds of $20 million and uses $18.1 million of the proceeds for construction of a new school building and $1.9 million of the proceeds for construction of a privately operated cafeteria in its administrative office building, which is located at a remote site. The bonds are secured, in part, by the cafeteria. The $1.9 million of proceeds is unrelated to the government use (that is, school construction) financed with the bonds and exceeds 5 percent of $20 million. Thus, the issue meets the private business tests.
City Y issues bonds with proceeds of $50 million for construction of a new public safety building ($32 million) and for improvements to an existing courthouse ($15 million). Y uses $3 million of the bond proceeds for renovations to an existing privately operated cafeteria located in the courthouse. The bonds are secured, in part, by the cafeteria. Y's use of the $3 million for the privately operated cafeteria does not meet the unrelated or disproportionate use test because these expenditures are neither unrelated use nor disproportionate use.
City Y issues bonds with proceeds of $50 million for construction of a new public safety building ($30.5 million) and for improvements to an existing courthouse ($15 million). Y uses $3 million of the bond proceeds for renovations to an existing privately operated cafeteria located in the courthouse. The bonds are secured, in part, by the cafeteria. Y also uses $1.5 million of the proceeds to construct a privately operated parking garage adjacent to a private office building. The private business use of the parking garage is unrelated to any government use of proceeds of the issue. Since the proceeds used for unrelated uses and disproportionate uses do not exceed 5 percent of the proceeds, the unrelated or disproportionate use test is not met.
County Z issues bonds with proceeds of $20 million for construction of a hospital with no private business use ($17 million); renovation of an office building with no private business use ($1 million); and construction of a garage that is entirely used for a private business use ($2 million). The use of the garage is related to the use of the office building but not to the use of the hospital. The private business use of the garage results in $1 million of disproportionate use because the proceeds used for the garage ($2 million) exceed the proceeds used for the related government use ($1 million). The bonds are not private activity bonds, however, because the disproportionate use does not exceed 5 percent of the proceeds of the issue.
(i) County W issues bonds with proceeds of $80 million for the following purposes: (1) $72 million to construct a County-owned and operated waste incinerator; (2) $1 million for a County-owned and operated facility for the temporary storage of hazardous waste prior to final disposal; (3) $1 million to construct a privately owned recycling facility located at a remote site; and (4) $6 million to build a garage adjacent to the County-owned incinerator that will be leased to Company T to store and repair trucks that it owns and uses to haul County W refuse. Company T uses 75 percent of its trucks to haul materials to the incinerator and the remaining 25 percent of its trucks to haul materials to the temporary storage facility.
(ii) The $1 million of proceeds used for the recycling facility is used for an unrelated use. The garage is related use. In addition, 75 percent of the use of the $6 million of proceeds used for the garage is allocable to the government use of proceeds at the incinerator. The remaining 25 percent of the proceeds used for the garage ($1.5 million) relates to the government use of proceeds at the temporary storage facility. Thus, this portion of the proceeds used for the garage exceeds the proceeds used for the temporary storage facility by $0.5 million and this excess is disproportionate use (but not unrelated use). Thus, the aggregate amount of unrelated use and disproportionate use financed with the proceeds of the issue is $1.5 million. Alternatively, under paragraph (c)(3)(iii) of this section, the entire garage may be treated as related to the government use of the incinerator and, under that allocation, the garage is not disproportionate use. In either event, section 141(b)(3) limits the aggregate unrelated use and disproportionate use to $4 million. Therefore, the bonds are not private activity bonds under this section.
[T.D. 8712, 62 FR 2297, Jan. 16, 1997]
Cross-references
Computed from the citations in the text of 26 CFR.
Code sections it cites
Regulations it cites
Cited by 1 other regulation
Amendment history
From the source citation at the end of the section, newest first. T.D. is a Treasury decision; FR is the Federal Register.
- Issued by T.D. 8712 (62 FR 2297)
Where it sits in 26 CFR
- Subchapter A Income tax
- Part 1 Income taxes
- Tax Exemption Requirements for State and Local Bonds
Nearby sections
- § 1.141-5 Private loan financing test.
- § 1.141-6 Allocation and accounting rules.
- § 1.141-7 Special rules for output facilities.
- § 1.141-8 $15 million limitation for output facilities.
- § 1.141-9 Unrelated or disproportionate use test.
- § 1.141-12 Remedial actions.
- § 1.141-13 Refunding issues.
- § 1.141-14 Anti-abuse rules.
- § 1.141-15 Effective/applicability dates.