Something strange is happening

Rep. Jason Smith hasn’t been chair of the House Ways and Means Committee very long, but he’s already done something rare for a Republican: He’s struck fear into the heart of corporate tax lobbyists.

The Missouri lawmaker is making it clear he isn’t the sort of Chamber of Commerce Republican his side usually picks for this job. He is going out of his way to let corporate America know he’s not terribly concerned with its problems, even if its taxes are going up substantially, while promising a lot more scrutiny of its relations with China.

“Our priorities have changed — our priorities are small business, working-class Americans and farmers over big corporations,” he said in an interview.

  Politico

I wonder how long before they kick him out of the GOP.

Asked what part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act shouldn’t be extended, Smith doesn’t point to any tax cuts that he thinks ought to lapse — but to Opportunity Zones, which he says should be rewritten to better benefit rural areas

[...]

The last time they were running the House, Republicans pushed through the biggest cut in the corporate tax rate in decades.

[...]

Many corporate leaders can’t believe Congress has allowed a series of time-delayed tax increases included in Republicans’ 2017 tax cuts to actually take effect and are still hoping lawmakers will reconsider provisions now making it harder to deduct research, interest and capital expenses.

On top of that, there’s Democrats’ new “book income” minimum tax on big companies, an especially complicated levy that is giving corporate tax departments fits.

Tax payments by big companies are projected to jump this year by 12 percent “largely” because of those increases, budget forecasters said last week.

Trump's tax returns

Thread starts here.  The report is here.

UPDATE:

Ways & Means wants Trump tax returns

Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., on Wednesday evening said he had filed a formal request with the Treasury Department for [President Trump's tax returns].

It’s just the opening salvo in what’s sure to be a prolonged battle with the administration to see returns the president has refused to release.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said at a Ways and Means hearing last month that he would protect the president’s privacy if members of Congress tried to request his tax returns.

[...]

Ways and Means is one of three congressional committees that has the authority to seek to obtain the president's returns. The other two panels that have the legal ability to request an individual's tax returns are the Senate Finance Committee and the Joint Committee on Taxation.

  NBC

Shouldn't Jerry Nadler request them, since the Judiciary Committee is responsible for impeachment investigations?

In early March, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, told reporters if House Democrats were to request Trump’s tax returns, he expects his committee would do the same, but said that they’d remain private required by law. “We will — if they get them we’ll just ask for them, and I think under our rules or under the law we can get them as long as we guarantee security,” he said.

[...]

As the committee's chairman, Neal has the power to send a written request to the IRS to provide the information. If the Treasury Department were to deny it, House Democrats will have to decide whether to pursue the tax returns through a legal route. If they are obtained, Neal would then have to designate the panel’s members as “agents” to read the returns. They would then have to vote to make the documents public and report them to the full House.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.