Want to receive this newsletter every weekday? Subscribe to POLITICO Pro. You'll also receive daily policy news and other intelligence you need to act on the day's biggest stories. AND YET: Here's one more area to keep an eye on this week. A pair of West Virginia Republicans, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito and Rep. Carol Miller, are trying to attach a one-year delay of new tax reporting requirements to the omnibus. Within weeks, millions more taxpayers — from small businesses to Uber and Lyft drivers to casual eBay sellers — will receive 1099-K tax forms, which detail payments exchanged on third-party platforms. That's because Democrats drastically reduced the amount of money and the number of transactions required to prompt a 1099-K, from the previous $20,000 and 200 transactions to $600 in any number of transactions. Changing that threshold won't require any fiddling with the tax code, and there are plenty of experts that believe a combination of taxpayers receiving unexpected tax forms and an overworked IRS could cause some trouble in the upcoming filing season. With that in mind, a one-year delay might be the last chance to buy some time for a bipartisan solution — though, again, the prevailing view right now is that anything besides a retirement bill is a longshot. BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE: House Democrats haven't had former President Donald Trump's tax returns for very long — barely a couple weeks. But they're about to do something with them, as Pro Tax's Brian Faler reported Ways and Means Chair Richard Neal (D-Mass.) announced a private committee meeting for Tuesday, essentially starting the process for the panel to release something based on or from Trump's confidential tax returns. Now what might that be? Probably impossible to say before at least Tuesday, so stay tuned. Releasing information from private tax returns isn't totally unprecedented — House Republicans, for instance, circulated confidential details when they investigated the IRS's treatment of tea party groups close to a decade ago. And yet, the seemingly imminent release of some nuggets from Trump's tax returns will likely further inflame tensions between Democrats and Republicans. Neal and other Democrats have said they need Trump's returns to look into how well the IRS is auditing presidents. But they've also been on the hunt for Trump's returns well over six years now, leading Republicans to argue that Democrats basically just wanted a pretext to shame the former president. "Going forward, partisans in Congress have nearly unlimited power to target political enemies by obtaining and making public their private tax returns to embarrass and destroy them," said Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, the top Republican on the Ways and Means Committee. SPEAKING OF LOOKING FORWARD: It's no secret that tax professionals around D.C. aren't expecting a lot of new tax legislation when Republicans take over the House at the start of next year. But the EU's decision to implement a global minimum tax likely will at least give Democrats and Republicans more to talk about over the next two years. Republicans have sharply knocked that 15 percent minimum tax for quite a while now, and particularly since the Biden administration played a pivotal role in striking the global tax deal that included the new levy. That rhetoric can only grow more heated now that a power like the EU is moving forward, which will likely also invite calls for retaliation from GOP lawmakers. Cases in point: "The United States will not be bullied into accepting an agreement that fails to protect American workers and businesses from discriminatory foreign taxes," as Rep. Vern Buchanan of Florida, one of three Republicans seeking to become the next Ways and Means chair, put it. Or: "It's a real problem in terms of competitiveness for the United States. That's why we're going to insist on our autonomy and our sovereignty and fight back," said Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.). Democrats have said that they hope Republicans will reconsider their opposition to the minimum tax if the rest of the world starts to move ahead with it — particularly since the minimum tax empowers other governments to tax U.S. multinationals if their effective rate falls below that 15 percent mark. "I've long believed that we need to reform our international tax system to reward those that invest in America and its workers, stop companies from shipping jobs and profit overseas, and ensure mega-corporations pay their fair share," said Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). But good luck finding anyone who believes that will happen anytime soon.
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