President Clinton Tuesday night released a statement indicating he would sign the IRS reform bill approved Tuesday by House-Senate negotiators, even with a reduction in capital gains taxes included.
Clinton said: "We need an IRS that reflects American values and respects American taxpayers. This bill goes a long way toward that goal, and I look forward to signing it into law."
While Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., Wednesday criticized the IRS reform conference report as "a huge tax bill that provides relief in large measure to the wealthiest among us," he said Democrats will support it.
Daschle complained that Republicans treated the IRS reform measure like a "semitruck," loading it up with provisions unrelated to ensuring the much-hated agency treats taxpayers more fairly. But he then conceded that Democrats "like the truck." He called the package "one of those 51-49 situations we find often times in legislation," and said Democrats' desire to enact politically popular IRS reforms in an election year overrides their objections to the bill.
Daschle objected to changing the capital gains holding period from 18 months to 12 months, and paying for it by expanding Senate Finance Chairman William Roth's tax- free individual retirement accounts. Daschle added that Democrats will try to "fix" the elements they object to in future legislation.
The House will vote on the conference report Thursday, while the Senate could take it up Friday, according to a spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss.
At a news conference Wednesday, a bipartisan group of conferees hailed the IRS reform bill as "historic" and "major." Late Tuesday night, conferees agreed to include a package of technical corrections to the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act. While it appeared earlier Tuesday that the provision would be omitted, partially due to the fact that it cost $21 million per year, in the end conferees were able to absorb the cost into the $13 billion 10-year reform bill.
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