Today at the Urban Institute. TPC hosts a lunchtime forum on the four most interesting tax ideas from the campaign trail. You’ll have to tune into the live webcast here at noon to find out what they are. 

“Let me be clear: I do not want nor will I accept the nomination for our party.” So said Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. In case you were wondering, General Sherman spent his last years painting and giving after-dinner speeches.

No energy tax breaks in the FAA bill. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced that those extenders will be dropped from the reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration. Senator John Thune, chairman of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, said of the effort to include the tax breaks,“It just got too complicated and it was taking too long.” Will Democrats, who demanded the provisions, still support the FAA measure?

Elsewhere on the Hill… The House Ways & Means Committee will mark up several bills today that Republicans say would hold the IRS more accountable. In other Ways & Means news, Chairman Kevin Brady hopes that Congress considers the Trans-Pacific Partnership, but it probably won’t happen until after the November elections. As for comprehensive tax reform, Brady remains optimistic about that, too.

Tax thieves are getting more sophisticated; the IRS needs the best staff. But IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, in his testimony before the Senate Finance Committee this week, noted that the IRS discovered 1.4 million fake returns last year, and prevented the loss of about $8.7 billion in stolen tax refunds. Koskinen also called on Congress to renew “streamlined critical pay authority.” With that, the IRS could more easily recruit and retain top information technology employees.

Tax policy shifts with the new Treasury regulations. TPC’s Eric Toder explains. “[T]he United States will be following the example of our major trading partners…  All of this fits into a new pattern in which countries care more about the competitiveness of their home-based companies than about attracting investment from either their own or foreign companies.”

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