Last month Commissioner Rettig testified before the Senate Finance Committee, and he stated that the tax gap could be approaching $1 trillion annually. That got a lot of attention, especially as the IRS’s own official tax gap estimates pegged the average gross tax gap at $441 billion per year, though it is based on data from 2011-2013. There’s also a lot of attention in general to possible changes to the Code as a part of the administration’s proposed legislation including many recommendations related to tax procedure. Some people are predicting that this could be the biggest year for changes to tax procedure since 1998.
Today the Senate Finance Committee’s Subcommittee on Taxation and IRS Oversight will be holding a follow up hearing on the tax gap. The testimony will be live streamed starting at 2:30.
We will update this post later with links to the written testimony of the witnesses.
Here is the witness line up for today:
Barry Johnson, Acting Chief, Research And Analytics Officer, Internal Revenue Service
Doug O’Donnell, Deputy Commissioner, Services & Enforcement, Internal Revenue Service
J. Russell George,Treasury Inspector General For Tax Administration
Nina E. Olson, Executive Director, Center for Taxpayer Rights
Charles O. Rossotti, Former Commissioner (1997-2002), Internal Revenue Service
UPDATE: See here for a link to a recording of the testimony https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frlZ6GQnd6A
About Leslie Book
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