LEADING THE DAY
Senate confirms SEC chief Gensler to full five-year term: The Senate on Tuesday voted to approve Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Gary Gensler
Senators voted 54 to 45 for Gensler to serve as a commissioner and chairman of the SEC through June 5, 2026.
The Senate last week confirmed Gensler to serve the remaining two months of former SEC Chairman Jay Clayton’s term by a nearly identical margin.
Gensler, who was sworn in to the SEC on Sunday, was a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management before joining the commission. He was also the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) during the Obama administration, a Treasury Department undersecretary during the Clinton administration and a partner at Goldman Sachs for almost two decades.
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Plus, how much the war in Afghanistan has cost
Tuesday, April 13, 2021
Tax Cheats Cost the US $1 Trillion a Year, IRS Chief Says The U.S. government is losing out on as much as $1 trillion a year or more in uncollected taxes, IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig told a Senate panel on Tuesday in calling for additional funding to help his “outgunned” agency pursue tax cheats and crack down on tax avoidance. The last official measure of the “tax gap” the annual difference between taxes owed and taxes paid estimated the average annual shortfall at $441 billion from 2011 to 2013. Rettig told lawmakers that the gap has grown significantly since then, fueled by the growth of cryptocurrencies and foreign-source income as well as abuses of pass-through structures. “If you add those in, I think it would not be outlandish that the actual tax gap could approach, and possibly exceed, $1 trillion” a year, Rettig said.
Biden this week began a series of bipartisan meetings at the outset of an ambitious push for $2.35 trillion in spending for everything from roads and electric cars to new schools and senior living facilities. To cover the costs, Biden wants to hike corporate taxes.
A regionally diverse group of House and Senate lawmakers from both parties who know transportation and public works by virtue of their committee assignments and state experiences offered polite advice for an hour and 40 minutes without coming to consensus.
It was the start of a legislative process that will consume months and may result in politically tense adaptations in order to secure Democratic votes in the Senate, let alone any Republican support ahead of next year’s midterms.