SO WHAT'S GOING ON HERE? As Morning Tax has noted before, it's still pretty early in the honeymoon period for the Biden administration and other world governments, which are hoping for more multilateral engagement following four years of former President Donald Trump. Along the same lines, it's quite possible that Europeans are engaging in some flattery to get the Biden administration to buy in even further to the OECD process. But those tax professionals monitoring matters from here in the States suggest that those European officials are losing sight of the bipartisan interest here — dating back to at least the Obama administration — in protecting the U.S. tax base from outside tax collectors. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen certainly has made positive statements about the OECD talks, but there is also the slight problem of getting Congress to approve any deal. "Countries with parliamentary systems don't appreciate the challenges of getting this stuff through Congress, and are taking Yellen's positive statements about the work (specifically, the minimum tax proposal that is part of the work) to mean much more than they do," said that same tax professional. Still, it's not clear there is much downside for European officials if the OECD talks fall short, even after they sounded so confident. (After all, lots of governments have already said what they would do should that happen — enforce unilateral digital taxes, perhaps sparking further retaliation from the U.S. — even if that's an outcome most everyone says they want to avoid.) THE WEEK AHEAD: Congressional Democrats are expected to get the ball rolling this week to potentially go it alone on further coronavirus relief, by passing budget resolutions that would allow them to use the reconciliation process that requires only a simple majority in the Senate. A group of 10 Senate Republicans led by Sen. Susan Collins of Maine made one final plea to try and convince Democrats off that path over the weekend, as our Burgess Everett reported — by requesting a meeting with President Joe Biden and floating a plan about a third the size of the $1.9 trillion currently being sought by the White House. The Republicans got that meeting, but it doesn't seem like Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is all that interested in what the GOP senators are offering. " They should negotiate with us, not make a take-it-or-leave-it offer," Schumer told the New York Daily News, specifically noting that the Republicans' framework didn't include more funding for states and localities. So now what? Biden and his team repeatedly have said how quickly they want to move on further Covid-19 assistance, but they wouldn't appear to lose too much by hearing out the Republicans this week — especially if budgets are being passed on a parallel track on the Hill. And it's another reminder that a lot of the ideas related to taxes and revenues being thrown around for further pandemic relief aren't the kind of low-hanging fruit with potentially wide amounts of bipartisan support. There is the enhanced aid to state and local governments, as Schumer noted, but also the proposals to expand the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit. For instance, Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, pooh-poohed the potential larger child credit recently — suggesting to reporters that Democrats should work on extending the CTC expansions in the 2017 GOP tax law, H.R. 1 (117). (Brady also maintained that the IRS would have real problems administering monthly credit payments, one of the ideas being floated by Democrats.) | 
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