Stalled tax-administration bill

Finance markup of stalled tax-administration bill is back on, Crapo says

The legislation had been held up by Democrats’ fight against President Donald Trump’s audit immunity deal.

Brian Faler

The Senate Finance Committee announced it will take up a bipartisan tax-administration bill on Thursday that had been stalled by Democrats’ efforts to block the Trump administration’s plan to shield the president from IRS audits.

Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) also released an explanation of the legislation he wrote with ranking Democrat Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).

The bill includes more than 50 relatively uncontroversial proposals. Among them: provisions cutting fees on low-income people who enter installment plans to pay off old tax debts; raising penalties on shady tax preparers; increasing protections for tax whistleblowers; and beefing up online services for taxpayers at the IRS.

The plan is projected to cost less than $400 million.

It was not immediately clear what would happen with Wyden’s proposed amendment to turn off President Donald Trump’s audit immunity. Crapo pulled the plug on a planned hearing last month on the legislation rather than face a vote on it.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a member of both the Finance and Judiciary committees, has since been demanding changes to the administration’s audit plan in exchange for his support to confirm Todd Blanche, who signed the immunity deal, as attorney general.

But Cornyn’s demands, which focus on limiting the scope of people who would benefit from the audit protections, likely won’t be enough to satisfy many Democrats.

The Judiciary Committee intends to take up Blanche’s nomination on Thursday. The Finance panel’s deadline for submitting amendments is noon tomorrow, and Wyden could still demand a vote. Either way, it appears the issue is unlikely to derail the hearing.

Tax writers in both the House and Senate are hoping to move a package of relatively uncontroversial tax changes in a lame-duck session of Congress. The House Ways and Means Committee approved more than a dozen such bills earlier this year.

“This week’s markup demonstrates the Committee’s bipartisan commitment to improving tax administration and ensuring the tax system works better for the American people,” Crapo said in a statement.