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Tax News & Views Tax Legislation and Napping with Bagpipes Roundup

By Trina Pinneau
March 10, 2025

Key Takeaways

  • Tax Legislation
  • IRS Money Freeze
  • TCJA
  • DOGE Treasury Access
  • Loper Bright
  • Tax Data Disclosures
  • REIT Rules
  • Hewlett Packard
  • Napping with Bagpipes

Tax Legislation

House Republican support grows for keeping clean energy tax breaks – Josh Siegel & James Bikales, Politico:

A growing number of House Republicans are urging the party to preserve the clean energy tax credits in Democrats’ climate law — and warning they may oppose the party’s budget bill if those incentives get axed.

In a letter shared exclusively with POLITICO, 21 House Republicans — whose districts have drawn billions in new investments because of the Inflation Reduction Act incentives — said developing clean energy was critical for the U.S. to meet President Donald Trump’s goal of becoming “energy dominant.” And they threatened to resist their colleagues’ efforts to gut the law to help pay for a small fraction of the GOP’s multi-trillion-dollar tax-cut package.

Republican Infighting Stalls Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful’ Tax Bill – Richard Rubin, Wall Street Journal:

President Trump’s tax-cut plans are grinding through Congress in slow motion. The tax cuts themselves aren’t really the reason why.

Republicans, who control the House and Senate, are divided over the size of spending reductions that accompany tax cuts, which budgetary yardstick they use and whether a debt-ceiling increase should be attached. The Senate still hasn’t fully blessed the House strategy to pass one bill that would address the fiscal matters along with border security, after months of debate over whether to split Trump’s priorities into two or even three party-line bills.

 

IRS Money Freeze

Short-Term Funding Bill Extends IRS Money Freeze – Asha Glover, Law 360 ($):

The Internal Revenue Service would continue to be blocked from accessing more than $20 billion in Inflation Reduction Act funding under legislation that the House is expected to consider this week, a measure that overall would keep the government running past March 14.

The Full-Year Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2025, released Saturday by House Appropriations Committee Republicans, would extend for a third time the funding bill signed by former President Joe Biden last March. That 2024 legislation effectively extended a freeze on just over $20 billion of the funding the agency received under the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022. The continuing resolution would extend funding through Sept. 30. The House is expected to consider the bill this week.

 

TCJA

Dems Cite Scorekeeper to Counter No-Cost TCJA Extension Claim – Doug Sword, Tax Notes ($):

The Joint Committee on Taxation confirmed that Republicans’ wished-for scoring method for the upcoming tax bill has never been used in reconciliation, and that if it were, it could be used to score both expiring tax cuts and spending increases as being costless to continue.

In a March 4 letter to Senate Finance Committee Democrats, Thomas Barthold, the JCT’s chief of staff, said the scorekeeper’s “default approach” since the mid-1970s has been to base estimates on current law, rather than the current-policy baseline many Republicans, including Senate leadership, advocate using for the upcoming tax reconciliation bill.

 

DOGE Treasury Access

Possibility of Repair Prevents Payment System Access Injunction – Nathan J. Richman, Tax Notes ($):

Three union entities aren’t entitled to a preliminary injunction barring personnel affiliated with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from accessing Treasury’s tax refund payment system, a federal judge concluded.

“Although the privacy harms Plaintiffs have asserted are real and sufficiently concrete to support the exercise of this Court’s subject-matter jurisdiction, those asserted harms are not necessarily ‘irreparable,’” Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said in a March 7 order in Alliance for Retired Americans v. Bessent.

DC Judge Declines to Block DOGE From Treasury Systems – Ali Sullivan, Law 360 ($):

A D.C. federal judge on Friday declined to wall off access to the federal government's payment systems from employees of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency during a lawsuit brought by retirees and union groups, determining the alleged privacy risks were not enough to warrant the court's intervention.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly acknowledged in an opinion that the plaintiffs' privacy concerns "are understandable and no doubt widely shared." But she said there is no evidence that Americans' sensitive financial data has been disclosed outside the federal government, and that the Trump administration has taken steps to "monitor and control" DOGE's access to the payment systems.

 

Loper Bright

NYSBA Examines Loper Bright Impact on Tax Rules – Kristen A. Parillo, Tax Notes ($). “Congress should use standardized language when granting rulemaking authority to Treasury and the IRS so the government and courts can better navigate a post-Loper Bright world, according to a group of tax advisers.”

 

Tax Data Disclosures

Immigrant Rights Groups Fight IRS Data Sharing with DHS – Asha Glover, Law 360 ($):

Two Illinois-based immigrant and Latino rights groups filed a suit Friday seeking to block the Internal Revenue Service from disclosing the names and addresses of taxpayers with taxpayer identification numbers to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and other agencies with the purpose of enforcing immigration laws.

The Internal Revenue Code has no language allowing such disclosures, which could also cause irreparable harm, Centro De Trabajadores Unidos and Immigrant Solidarity Dupage told a D.C. federal court in their complaint. The groups are seeking a declaration that the U.S. Department of the Treasury and IRS are forbidden by law from disclosing the information to aid in immigration law enforcement, according to the complaint.

Immigrant Aid Groups Seek to Prevent Tax Data Disclosures – Mary Katherine Browne, Tax Notes ($). “Two immigration nonprofit organizations are looking to keep the Trump administration from using tax return information to carry out plans for mass deportations.”

 

REIT Rules

Taxpayer's Income from Airline Rents, Interest Meets REIT Rules – Rebecca Chen, Bloomberg ($). “The IRS determined that a taxpayer that helped finance the development of a new airport terminal can treat rent from airlines and interest payments from the public agency that leases the terminal as qualifying income for purposes of real estate investment trust requirements.”

 

Hewlett Packard

Hewlett Packard Agrees to $358 Million Tax Adjustment with IRS – Caleb Harshberger, Bloomberg ($):

Hewlett Packard Enterprises agreed to a $358 million reduction in unrecognized tax benefits with the IRS, the company said Friday.

IRS issued a Revenue Agent’s Report following its audit of the company’s 2017 through 2019 tax years, resulting in the reduction in unrecognized tax benefits, the company said in a filing. HP agreed with the report.

 

What Day is it?

Its National Napping Day. Thank Goodness. Also, demonstrating that irony does exist, it is International Bagpipe Day, try napping through that!


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About the Author(s)

Trina Pinneau photo

Trina Pinneau

Senior Manager
Trina has more than 10 years of public accounting experience providing tax consulting services and analyzing complex tax situations. She has spent the majority of her time in the credits and incentives space with a focus on energy credits and excise taxes. Trina also has experience in tax controversy and accounting methods. In joining Eide Bailly's National Tax Office Trina is focusing her efforts on energy efficiency incentives while being a resource for the excise and tax controversy team.

Any opinions expressed or implied are those of the author and not necessarily those of Eide Bailly. Opinions found in linked items are those of the authors of the linked item, not of your bloggers or of Eide Bailly. “$” means link may be behind a paywall. Items here do not constitute tax advice.