Senate Finance Committee Chair Mike Crapo (R-ID) told Politico his committee will hold a confirmation hearing for Treasury Secretary nominee Scott Bessent on Jan. 16.
After the committee hearing, Bessent’s nomination would be teed up for an executive session where lawmakers could report him out for confirmation by the full Senate. Senate Republicans are working to confirm President-elect Trump’s Treasury team more quickly than in Trump’s first term due to the administration’s focus on tax legislation and because of the impending debt limit deadline.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen recently warned Congress that Treasury expects to hit the statutory debt ceiling between Jan. 14 and Jan. 23, at which point extraordinary measures would be required to prevent the government from breaching the nation's debt ceiling.
Trump's pick to head the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), former Rep. Billy Long (R-MO), is facing some scrutiny from Democratic tax-writers because, since leaving Congress last year, he has been involved in helping business owners retroactively claim the Employee Retention Tax Credit (ERTC) created in 2020 to help small businesses and nonprofits keep their employees on their payrolls during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who serves on the Senate Finance Committee, sent a letter to Long today raising questions about his tax experience and ERTC work.
"Although you bill yourself as a 'Certified Business and Tax Adviser,' this certification appears to only require a three-day training. Indeed, your lack of significant management or tax experience—and your promotion of credits that have been 'magnet[s] for fraud'—raise serious questions about your qualifications to lead the IRS," Warren wrote.
This article was provided to OSAP by ASAE's Power of Associations and Inroads.