'Back-Door' Base Closures
Biden Talks Loss With Fallen Troops' Families
Neely Out at GSA
More USPS Buyouts
Gimme My Discount! Deals for Feds
Buyout Watch: Who's Offering What
AUTHOR ARCHIVES
Government operations bills may be postponed until 2008
December 10, 2007 A set of good-government bills, despite strong support, appear increasingly likely to be pushed to next year as Congress focuses on higher priority legislation before recessing. Senate Judiciary Committee aides said they remain hopeful the Senate this week will pass, by unanimous consent, a bill to overhaul the Freedom of ...
House panel to take up bill to block outsourcing of tax collections
July 17, 2007 The House Ways and Means Committee is headed for a partisan markup Wednesday on a bill to repeal the Internal Revenue Service's authority to use private debt collectors to ease the backlog of uncollected taxes. The program, authorized by the 2004 corporate tax law, is in a pilot phase, which ...
Treasury chief warns of burdens in attempts to close tax gap
April 18, 2007 Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on Wednesday resisted calls from Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., to agree to a goal of reaching 90 percent voluntary compliance with tax laws within 10 years. Baucus said that would represent a 6 percent increase in compliance rates and add about $150 billion each ...
Tax withholding provision sparks uproar among contractors
May 12, 2006 Local government groups and contractors are pledging to fight to roll back a provision quietly added to the tax reconciliation conference report that would take the unprecedented step of withholding taxes from payments made to federal, state and local contractors. The provision -- which could affect a wide range of ...
Senators differ on plans for overhaul of foreign investment oversight
March 14, 2006 Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, Monday introduced bipartisan legislation to demolish the executive branch committee that approved the Dubai Ports World purchase, setting up a conflict with Banking Chairman Richard Shelby, R-Ala., over how the process should be overhauled. Shelby plans to mark up his ...
Administration officials say port takeover underwent rigorous review
February 23, 2006 Bush administration officials on Thursday sought to calm the furor over the proposed takeover of operations at six U.S. ports by United Armed Emirates-based Dubai Ports World, telling members of the Senate Armed Services Committee that agencies within the administration agreed unanimously that the deal did not pose a threat ...
Senate to begin final push on legislation
December 20, 2005 The Senate will begin working its way through final votes on remaining legislation Wednesday, starting with a nail-biter vote on the budget reconciliation package. A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said final passage on the budget bill, originally envisioned for Tuesday evening, likely will be the first ...
Defense contractors want in on manufacturing tax break
April 20, 2005 The Treasury Department has interpreted a new tax cut for manufacturers in a way that denies benefits to aerospace companies for a substantial portion of their defense contracts, potentially costing the industry billions, industry and congressional sources said. Defense companies, including Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and United Technologies, have insisted ...
IRS blames complexity, cheating for gap in tax revenue
April 14, 2005 Complexity in the tax code and cheating by the self-employed and independent contractors are two of the biggest factors contributing to the "tax gap," the more than a quarter trillion dollar difference between what is owed the government and what is collected, the Senate Finance Committee was told Thursday. Internal ...
Congressional gatekeepers control access to IRS records
December 6, 2004 The eleventh-hour fight that delayed the fiscal 2005 omnibus appropriations bill concerns a section of U.S. law governing congressional access to confidential IRS tax returns. That provision -- section 6103 -- grants authority to three individuals to control such access: the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, the chairman of ...
