Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., Thursday expressed doubt that IRS reform legislation will move this fall. Daschle said while he supports many elements of a reform plan developed by Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb., and Rep. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, he added that questions about a proposed independent oversight board still must be resolved.
Daschle's comments came after his House counterpart, Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, D-Mo., Wednesday offered to help GOP leaders craft a bipartisan IRS overhaul plan that President Clinton could sign. Gephardt also said Democrats would like to be represented in upcoming national debates, organized by House Republicans, on overhauling the tax system.
In a letter to Speaker Gingrich and Majority Leader Armey, Gephardt said he wanted to put aside politics "in order to accomplish reform of the tax code and our system of tax collection for the good of the people we all represent."
The Kerrey-Portman plan calls for a nine-member board, including the Treasury secretary, to oversee IRS operations, as well as incentives to improve electronic tax filing. The Clinton administration has put forward its own restructuring plan which shares many of the goals of the Kerrey-Portman bill. But the White House has criticized the Kerrey-Portman proposal for having an outside board oversee the agency.
Gephardt's stand on IRS restructuring "falls in between the two" and he wants to write a compromise that Clinton will sign, a Gephardt spokeswoman told the Associated Press.
Meanwhile, representatives of key stakeholder groups joined members of Congress Wednesday in supporting IRS reform legislation. Portman showcased his legislation while surrounded by more than a half-dozen groups as diverse as the National Taxpayers Union and the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU).
Each group "desperately wants a better IRS that works for taxpayers," Portman said, describing the plan unveiled Tuesday by the Clinton administration as "inadequate."
Kerrey, who also appeared at the event, said he hoped to "bring the [IRS] commissioner into the room" when debating changes in the tax system that would include provisions making the position both more accountable and flexible.
However, the Senior Executives Association this week criticized both the Kerrey-Portman bill and the administration's alternative plan because a representative of the IRS employees' union, the NTEU, would be included on the oversight boards included in each proposal.
The Senior Executives Association "strongly objected to a union representative being named to the board since the union would be in a position to veto personnel and management decisions."
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