Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee defeated an effort Thursday by Democrats to block a plan by the Trump administration to shield the president from IRS audits.
Lawmakers voted along party lines, 14-13, to kill an amendment to a tax-administration bill before the panel that would have barred the administration from implementing the plan.
While Democrats denounced the immunity deal as an illegal abuse of power, Republicans said little aside from saying they are working with the administration to change the plan as part of negotiations to confirm acting attorney general Todd Blanche as attorney general.
Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) warned that accepting Democratic amendment would probably doom the underlying legislation, which is aimed at streamlining IRS operations.
“This is not the place,” Crapo told colleagues. “If this bill were to become the vehicle where this issue is resolved, it would achieve basically making this bill a partisan bill” and that “would turn this bill into a bill that has a much dimmer future for becoming law.”
Lawmakers later approved the full measure on a 26-1 vote, with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) the lone opponent.
“No other taxpayer, ever, has gotten this kind of a deal,” she said. “I cannot support a bill that rubber stamps Donald Trump’s corruption. Congress needs to stand up and put a stop to it.”
The administration announced in May a plan to spare Trump and his family from IRS audits in exchange for him dropping a likely unsuccessful lawsuit against the agency over the leak by a contractor of his tax information to the New York Times.
Democrats have been incensed by the plan, and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who sits on the Finance Committee, has been demanding changes, though Cornyn’s suggestions are unlikely to quell Democratic outrage.
Cornyn wants to clarify that the audit protections only applies to the parties named in Trump’s suit, and that it only applies to returns already filed — not future filings. Cornyn has complained that Blanche already agreed to that during his confirmation hearing earlier this month, but that the administration must put it in writing. The Senate Judiciary Committee, of which Cornyn is also a member, delayed a scheduled Thursday vote on Blanche’s nomination as Cornyn and the White House continue to negotiate.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), another tax writer critical of the immunity deal, said he believes the administration is working “in good faith” to address objections to the audit immunity plan.
The tax-administration legislation, which lawmakers hope to approve during a lame-duck session of Congress, includes more than 60 relatively uncontroversial provisions aimed at improving the tax system.
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