The dog days of August will be jam-packed. In a rare Sunday session, the Senate bipartisan group continued work on the massive, roughly 2,70-page infrastructure bill, releasing text late last night.. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer plans to hold a vote on the infrastructure legislation as early as this week, followed by a vote on the $3.5 trillion budget resolution before the Senate leaves for its summer recess. Recess had been scheduled for Aug. 9 but may be delayed by a week.
CBO completes analysis of President Biden’s request for discretionary funding and some proposals that affect mandatory spending. For the current fiscal year, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the deficit will be $3.0 trillion. For the the 2022–2031 period, under the President’s proposals, discretionary spending would be $225 billion (or 1.3 percent) more than it is in CBO’s baseline projections, and the proposals that CBO has analyzed would increase mandatory spending by $1.2 trillion, or $14 billion less than the Biden Administration estimates. The proposals that CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) have not yet analyzed would, according to the Biden Administration, add $3.6 trillion to revenues and $3.2 trillion to mandatory spending.
Will the CBO release estimates of other provisions in the President’s budget? In a typical year, CBO would release a comprehensive report containing the budgetary effects of the President’s entire budget, including JCT’s estimates of his revenue proposals, and the impact on the deficit. This year, work on legislation has stalled completion of the full report. Will we ever see it? CBO says maybe.
Tune in to TPC’s Prescription this Thursday at noon. This week's guest is tax expert Daniel Hemel, a law professor at the University of Chicago. He'll discuss with TPC’s Steve Rosenthal the cap on the state and local tax deduction and proposals for reform, as well as other tax policy changes currently being debated in Congress. Learn more and register here.
Remember former President Trump’s tax returns? The Department of Justice on Friday told the Treasury Department that the IRS must respond to a congressional request for the former president’s tax returns and release them. US District Court Judge for the District of Columbia Trevor McFadden has given Trump and his legal team until Wednesday to issue a response.
As for a possible tax refund…In June, the Illinois Property Tax Appeal Board ruled that Cook County over-assessed a Chicago skyscraper and that a $1 million refund should go to the property owner. The Chicago Sun-Times reports that Chicago Public Schools could lose $450,000 in funding if the refund is disbursed. The property owner is former President Trump, and the Cook County State’s Attorney has filed a lawsuit to block the refund.
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