THE BIG QUESTIONS: But let’s be honest — the reason the procedural questions currently can seem daunting is because of the policy obstacles that come with clinching a tax bill next year. The biggest among them: The cost of Republicans’ fiscal ideas. Plenty of GOP lawmakers also made it clear last week that restraining spending was going to be top of mind during 2025 — and for some, that focus trumped even the concern that trillions of dollars in tax cuts would expire at the end of next year. That’s going to make it plenty difficult for Republicans to settle on a price tag for their fiscal package or packages next year, in which the GOP will also seek new border security measures, among other things. And in many ways, a lot of the details of a potential tax bill will flow from those decisions, like what possible offsets might need to be used, which of Trump’s targeted tax cut ideas from the campaign could be in the mix and for how long Republicans might be able to extend or enact tax cuts. It’s not just Trump’s new ideas — most notably scrapping taxes on tips — that Republicans will have to worry about when it comes to offering new tax relief, either. Lots of attention so far has focused on blue-state Republicans’ hard line on raising the current $10,000 cap on state and local tax deductions in any 2025 tax bill. But K Street certainly took notice of the proposal last week from Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) to greatly expand the Child Tax Credit, with plenty of lobbyists believing that more populist Republicans seeking larger tax breaks for families could be a knottier problem than SALT. Another area to watch out for: Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), the incoming Finance chair, in particular, has stressed that there should be no cost associated with extending the existing provisions from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Crapo got some backing on that idea last week from some more hardline Republicans, like Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who have come out in favor of the two-track approach for 2025. But to many experts, and not just those on the left, that idea is little more than smoke and mirrors. “The double-no-count gimmick is not only dishonest, but it deliberately hides the cost of tax cuts and sets up cuts to programs that will hurt American families,” the progressive Center for American Progress said in a report last week. One last point: Some of the biggest proponents pushing the GOP to enact a single, larger fiscal package next year are also asking Republicans to move quickly on that measure. But the last week also must prompt questions — and has sparked chatter — about how feasible it would be for the GOP to finish off a tax bill with any kind of quick-strike efficiency. Case in point: Larry Kudlow, the Fox Business host who was a top economic aide in the first Trump administration, pleaded with a pair of GOP senators last week to do one reconciliation bill — with tax cuts — and to do it fast. (For whatever it’s worth, those senators, Kevin Cramer of North Dakota and Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, pooh-poohed the idea, though they did say they'd follow Trump's lead.) A little extra 2025 prep: Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), the incoming majority leader, announced next year’s GOP committee assignments late on Friday, as our Ursula Perano noted. Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas is the one Senate Republican currently slated to join the Finance Committee. Republicans will have 14 members on Finance next year, instead of this year’s 13, after regaining the majority. Perhaps more interesting is one Finance member who’s staying on the committee: Thune, the new majority leader. The current Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, dropped off Finance when he took that role. Another personnel update: Trump announced Sunday that he was nominating Stephen Miran, who was a senior Treasury official in his first term, to chair the Council of Economic Advisers, as our Mia McCarthy and Declan Harty noted. Worth noting: It didn’t take long for members of the tax wonk set to point out that Miran has praised the idea of a destination-based cash-flow tax as recently as this year. Some Republicans pushed that idea, which became known as the BAT (for border adjustment tax) back in 2017. There hasn’t been much momentum for bringing the idea back now, in no small part because of all those obstacles mentioned above. But the possibility has floated out there enough that at least one conservative group, Americans for Prosperity, has openly sought to kill any potential comeback. JOINING THE PARTY: Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, is donating $1 million to President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, as our Daniel Lippman scooped in Playbook. An Intuit spokesperson said the contribution was “part of our decades-long commitment to bipartisan advocacy,” and that the company is “committed to ensuring our customers’ voices are heard on important issues.” Here’s one issue in particular that Intuit has been lobbying loudly about for the last couple years — the IRS’s Direct File initiative, which allows certain taxpayers to send their tax returns directly to the agency, and which GAO said last week had a successful pilot season early this year. The TurboTax maker has made arguments similar to other opponents of the program, including that it’s dangerous to allow the IRS to act as both tax preparer and auditor and that taxpayers have plenty of private-sector options for free filing. (Intuit also has argued that Direct File could particularly deprive minority taxpayers of key tax breaks.) Direct File is expected to start a second, expanded tax season in about a month. But a group of GOP lawmakers is urging Trump to stop that from happening — to issue an executive order as early as Jan. 20 to essentially end the program.
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