Marko Rubio Final after trying to be a perfectionist to Fix the Child Credit Tax
Voted for the Tax Bill America really needs but here say what happen before that
I am for Marco Rubio no doubt
2 Days ago on...
Dec 14, 2017 at 2:02 pm ET
Sen. Marco Rubio to Oppose Tax Bill Unless Child-Tax Credit Fixed
Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) will vote against a $1.4 trillion tax cut unless a child-tax credit is made more beneficial to working-poor families, a spokeswoman said.
“Correct,” she said in an emailed statement when asked if Mr. Rubio would vote against the bill unless his concerns were addressed by negotiators.
“Senator Rubio has consistently communicated to the Senate tax negotiators that his vote on final passage would depend on whether the refundability of the child tax credit was increased in a meaningful way,” the spokeswoman said.
His stance throws up a last-minute hurdle plans to pass a tax bill next week. Sen. Mike Lee (R., Utah), who has also wanted a more generous child-tax credit, said he was undecided on the tax bill in its current form. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R. Utah) told reporters he was concerned but said he hadn’t spoken to Mr. Rubio.
Asked about Mr. Rubio's announcement, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the administration was "extremely excited about the progress we've already made to double the tax credit" but said it would "continue working with the senator."
"We're going to continue working with them to get the job done," she said. "But we think we've made great strides and frankly pretty historic movement in terms of the child tax credit."
Asked whether there was "more room to move" for the White House on the child tax credit, Ms. Sanders said, "Right now we're going to focus on letting some of the Senate move forward in the progression of their conversations."
Sen. Tim Scott (R., S.C.), who has been working on the child credit, says the issue is "moving in the right direction."
Sens. Jeff Flake of Arizona and Susan Collins of Maine have also said they are undecided.
Siobhan Hughes, Rebecca Ballhaus
CHILD TAX CREDIT, HIGHLIGHTS, JEFF FLAKE, MARCO RUBIO, MIKE LEE, ORRIN HATCH, SUSAN COLLINS
Dec 14, 2017 at 1:06 pm ET
One Tax Area Unaffected By Overhaul: Criminal Investigations
One tax area expected to be untouched by Republicans' legislative effort: the IRS’s criminal investigations unit.
In an annual report issued Thursday, IRS-CI said it was continuing to work a series of complicated financial-crime cases, and seeing some optimistic trends, including a sharp reduction in identity theft. The agency reported initiating 374 investigations into identity theft involving tax refunds in the 2017 fiscal year, down from 776 two years ago.
“A lot of those avenues to get false refunds out of the IRS, those instances are significantly lower," said Don Fort, the agency’s chief.
A unit within the Internal Revenue Service, the agency has struggled to secure additional funding or replace all of the agents it has been losing to retirement.
Mr. Fort said officials are trying to compensate by using data to better inform which cases they chose to pursue, including focusing more on bigger, international financial and cyber crimes.
The new cases initiated in international operations went from 186 in the 2015 fiscal year to 283 this past year.
Such trends are likely to continue after the legislative overhaul. Because Republicans are using the budget-reconciliation process to pass it with a simple majority in the Senate, they can't include nonfiscal measures. That's part of the reason why the bill doesn't contain any of the structural IRS changes Republicans have discussed.
“I don’t think we’re anticipating any specific changes with the upcoming tax reform,” Mr. Fort said.
—Aruna Viswanatha and Richard Rubin
https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/tax-bill-2017/card/1513278156