Lily Batchelder

Opinion | Mitt Romney: Tax the Rich, Like Me

Has Mitt Romney been reading the @taxlawcenter.org Tealbook of options to broaden the tax base? www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/o...

THREAD:

GOP Senators say they're trying to scale back the SALT cap relief in the House bill. But could the approach to SALT in the Senate bill actually end up *more* generous & costly overall than the House bill? Do Senators – or does anyone – even know, despite the intense political focus on SALT?

JCT tables follow. (Prior chart was for 2027 and calculated from JCT tables.) 2/

New JCT distributional estimates of proposed tax changes by the Senate Finance Committee. Compared to current law, the bill heavily skews benefits to the wealthy as a share of after-tax income. 1/

Full recording of our discussion on risks to taxpayer privacy from DOGE & related efforts featuring Daniel Werfel, Lily Batchelder, Brandon DeBot, Elizabeth Laird, and David Padrino nyu.zoom.us/rec/share/IF...

Looking forward to this discussion starting at 1:30 with Danny Werfel and cybersecurity, IT modernization, and tax policy experts!

Register for Webinar: Understanding Risks to Taxpayer Privacy Please join the Tax Law Center for a virtual discussion of the legal, privacy, and cybersecurity risks of unprecedented efforts to access, use, and share taxpayer data across government for purposes f...

On June 3, I'm moderating a panel for the @taxlawcenter.org on the privacy risks of unprecedented access / sharing of taxpayer data across government. We'll hear from Former IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel plus Brandon DeBot, Elizabeth Laird & David Padrino. Please join! nyu.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

New @centeronbudget.bsky.social analysis of the draft GOP tax plan released yesterday:

Unsurprisingly, it provides enormous tax cuts for the wealthy—including an average annual $65k cut for the top 1%—while doing little for low- and moderate-income families in 2027 (and even less by 2029).

IRS Staff Must Reject and Report Attempts at Political Interference in Tax Investigations Recent reporting suggests that the President and other Administration officials may have attempted to initiate or interfere with IRS investigations for political reasons. Overwhelming bipartisan major...

For more details on the law, see this Tax Law Center post. Overwhelming bipartisan majorities in Congress have enacted laws making it a crime for the President and his staff to request an audit or investigation of a particular taxpayer. 3/3 taxlawcenter.org/blog/irs-sta...

If the President can announce that he is revoking the tax-exempt status of a charity, we have crossed a rubicon that has no clear end. What will stop him or any President from weaponizing the IRS to intimidate any political opponent or group he dislikes into silence? 2/3

The President just effectively signed a statement that he is committing a crime, violating a criminal statute enacted with overwhelming bipartisan majorities (it passed 96-2 in the Senate). Here is the law and his post. 1/3

Harvard sues the Trump administration in escalating confrontation Lawsuit argues that government actions, including freezing $2.2 billion in federal funding, violated the First Amendment and didn’t follow legal procedures.

Harvard may not be at the top of most people’s list of favorite charitable causes, but if the President’s and WH's unlawful interference in IRS actions regarding specific TPs and charities isn’t stopped, it means he or any president can come for your church or community group.

This violate the law (which was passed by a vote of 96-2 in the Senate in 1998) that makes it a crime for the President and his political advisors to directly or indirectly interfere in IRS audits or investigations. 11/11 medium.com/@taxlawcente...

Now R lawmakers are silent when the President – the most political actor of all! – is pressuring the IRS to revoke the tax exempt status of nonprofits he doesn’t like. 10/

One of the recommendations from the bipartisan Senate Finance Committee report was that *anyone* with influence over whether and how tax exempts are reviewed and audited should be precluded from participating in political work, even when off-duty. 9/

Budget Cuts Have Reduced Enforcement Staff by 31 Percent Since 2010 | Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

The IRS was defunded for a decade to a large extent in response. 8/ www.cbpp.org/charts/budge...

Despite the fact that it is not crazy (except as a political matter) to select applications for tax exempt status for review about whether they intend to abide by lobbying limits if their name includes terms associated with electioneering, 7/

Despite the fact that these weren’t even audits but rather keywords were used in triaging applications for tax-exempt status, 6/

Despite the fact that there was no evidence of interference by political appointees (let alone the WH or President!), despite the fact that the IRS voluntarily disclosed this information without prompting, 5/

The (R-appointed) Inspector General for Tax Administration and the bipartisan Senate Finance Committee report found that the IRS had also used liberal-coded keywords like “progressive” and “Occupy” to identify tax exempts for audit. 4/ www.tigta.gov/sites/defaul...

Finance Committee Releases Bipartisan IRS Report | The United States Senate Committee on Finance Finance Committee Releases Bipartisan IRS Report

Rs and Ds on a *bipartisan* basis launched a multiyear investigation into the matter. 3/ www.finance.senate.gov/release/fina...

In 2013, a nonpartisan career IRS official publicly shared that the IRS had selected some tax exempts for review about whether they were violating lobbying limits based on keywords like “Tea Party.” A firestorm ensued. 2/

Trump eyes targeting more tax-exempt groups while denouncing Harvard President Donald Trump defended his administration's moves to strip Harvard of its tax-exempt status and suggested more organizations could be in the IRS's crosshairs.

The silence from Republican lawmakers re: Trump’s suggestions that IRS audit specific tax exempt orgs is deafening. Here’s a short history of how Rs and Ds responded to prior IRS reviews of tax exempts when *no* political appointees, let alone the President, were interfering. 1/