“Well, one reason it’s not part of the proposal is that we did have pushback. Another reason is that we found out that the Democrats were going to put a proposal into the reconciliation package, which was not just similar to the one we had, but with a lot more IRS enforcement,” Sen. Rob Portman told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union” when asked about Republican opposition to the idea.
“That created quite a problem because the general agreement is that this is the bipartisan-negotiated infrastructure package and that we will stick with that,” he added.
The comments from the Ohio Republican mean that the group of lawmakers will have to continue looking for ways to pay for the costly infrastructure package, the latest version of which suggested that an additional $100 billion could be collected by the IRS over the next 10 years simply by beefing up enforcement and making sure the government is collecting what taxpayers actually owe — also known as closing the “tax gap.”
But that’s based on tax years 2011, 2012, and 2013 and IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig told lawmakers earlier this year that he believes the tax gap could be much bigger now — up to a massive $1 trillion a year.
President Joe Biden had supported tougher IRS enforcement and his administration has put the figure somewhere in the middle. A recent Treasury analysis found that the tax gap totaled nearly $600 billion in 2019 and could rise to about $7 trillion over the next decade if left unaddressed — roughly equal to 15% of taxes owed.
This story is breaking and will be updated.
More News
Who’d Want to Give a Commencement Speech Anymore?
One of the Deadliest Jobs in Mexico: Running for Office
En México, ser candidato a un cargo público es un trabajo de alto riesgo