WELL THAT DIDN’T TAKE LONG: The House now is scheduled to vote on Tuesday on a measure that would give tax relief to disaster victims. If that seems quick — well, it was. Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) just announced on Thursday that his discharge petition to force a House vote on the disaster relief measure was successful. To be fair, it was never going to take too long for that bill to get a vote once the discharge petition received the support of a majority of the House. So now what? House leaders are bringing the disaster relief tax bill — which offers support to people affected by hurricanes in Florida, wildfires in California and the train derailment in Ohio — under the suspension of rules, meaning it would need a two-thirds majority to pass. That same legislation also happens to be in the bipartisan tax bill negotiated by Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.). It’s certainly fair to think that supporters of the disaster relief legislation wouldn’t have needed to rely on a discharge petition if they thought the broader bipartisan measure was a good bet to get enacted. But it’s not. The Wyden-Smith plan, which would also expand the Child Tax Credit and restore tax incentives prized by the business community, currently is stuck in the Senate, and lots of tax observers don’t see that changing anytime soon. MORE ON THAT IN A BIT, but first thanks for coming back to Weekly Tax — where we wholeheartedly acknowledge wearing ankle socks. Look at that final frontier: Today marks 34 years since the Hubble Telescope produced its first image, of a star cluster named NGC 3532. Help bring matters into sharper focus. Send your best tips and feedback. Email: bbecker@politico.com, bfaler@politico.com, bguggenheim@politico.com and teckert@politico.com. You can also reach us on X, formerly Twitter, at @berniebecker3, @Brian_Faler, @ben_guggenheim, @tobyeckert, @POLITICOPro and @Morning_Tax. NOT GIVING UP: Outside groups that support the bipartisan tax bill, including advocates for both businesses and working families, have seen it stall out in the Senate for going on four months now. But big names from the business lobby keep trying to nudge Senate leaders to take up the Wyden-Smith plan, most recently pushing for a vote by Memorial Day. The National Association of Manufacturers, along with 47 of its state partners, is the latest to push Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for a quick vote. The manufacturers group noted once more that China has a much more generous regime than the U.S. for writing off research expenses, particularly now that America forces companies to deduct those costs over at least five years. Wyden and Smith’s bill would allow most research investments to be written off immediately, and would bring back a more favorable deduction for interest and full expensing of capital investments. “Put simply, failing to reinstate these tax policies forces manufacturers in the U.S. to surrender jobs and economic opportunities to China and our other global competitors and makes it more difficult for our industry to innovate for the future,” NAM and its partners wrote. For their part, Wyden said recently that he’s still talking with Schumer about scheduling a vote for this bill, and Smith has predicted that it would pass the Senate if it ever hit the floor. Still, it’s hard to know what would compel Schumer to schedule a vote now after all these weeks of inaction, particularly with other issues seeming to be more pressing and with some signs that Senate Democrats themselves might not be fully united behind the tax bill. LET’S RUN IT BACK: It wouldn’t seem that Treasury and IRS officials would need a lot of convincing to bring back a government-run tax filing portal, given how much they’ve praised this year’s Direct File pilot program. Even so, congressional Democrats are giving Direct File a big endorsement — and urging the Biden administration to not only authorize a second year of the initiative, but to expand it as well. Altogether, more than 130 Democrats in both the House and Senate signed on to the letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and IRS chief Danny Werfel, which amounts to about half of the party’s lawmakers in Congress. “The IRS’s delivery of this new, wildly successful filing tool less than 18 months after receiving significant new funds from the Inflation Reduction Act demonstrates the huge returns from investing in the IRS and in government technology in general,” the Democrats wrote. Their letter also hits many of the same notes as a message that progressive advocacy groups sent last week to Werfel and Yellen, criticizing private-sector tax preparers for their services and noting the solid reviews that Direct File got from some of its roughly 144,000 users. And they called for similar expansions to the program, like bringing it to more than the 12 states that took part in this year’s pilot, allowing Direct File to tackle more complicated tax situations — and, eventually they hope, pre-populating returns. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a longtime champion of a government-run filing program, helped lead the letter, as did Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) and Reps. Don Beyer (D-Va.), Katie Porter (D-Calif.) and Brad Sherman (D-Calif.). Plenty of other prominent Democrats added their names to the letter as well, including Schumer, Wyden, Senate Appropriations Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the ranking member on the House Appropriations Committee. WELCOME TO THE FIRM: Former House Ways and Means Chair Kevin Brady seemed to have a pretty quiet 2023, his first year after retiring from Congress. But no longer: Brady will be joining the very prominent lobbying shop of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld as a senior policy consultant, the firm announced this morning. That’s on top of another gig announced last month for Brady, as spokesperson for the Alliance for Competitive Taxation, a coalition of corporate heavyweights that will be paying close attention to those big 2025 tax negotiations. Akin also referenced Brady’s experience with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in 2017 in announcing his hiring. “His role as the architect of the TCJA during his tenure as chair of the Ways and Means Committee provides him with a unique insight that will be invaluable for our clients as we approach the TCJA’s expiration in 19 months,” said the firm’s Hunter Bates. For his part, Brady has been making the rounds more as the chatter about next year’s tax talks have started to warm up, generally pushing the message that both parties will have an incentive to preserve a lot of tax cuts before the end of 2025.
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