March 7, 2019 - Issue: Vol. 165, No. 41 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 1st Session
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Filing Season (Executive Calendar); Congressional Record Vol. 165, No. 41
(Senate - March 07, 2019)
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[Pages S1727-S1728] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] Filing Season Mr. President, on the subject of taxes, we are now in our sixth week of the tax filing season. Over 50 million Americans have filed their tax returns. As in previous years, the IRS is moving forward in the filing season at a pace very consistent with previous years. In some aspects, they are exceeding benchmarks set by last year's filing season. This has been one of the most scrutinized filing seasons I can remember. In some ways, that is understandable. As I have alluded to, this is the first filing season after our Tax Code received the largest overhaul in three decades. After the massive tax bill we passed, you would expect some difficulties. The filing season began shortly after our government experienced the longest shutdown in history. So the longest shutdown in history, added to the fact that we have a new tax bill, makes this tax filing season very different. Despite these factors, this filing season has run relatively smoothly. Consistent with previous years, the IRS has processed over 95 percent of the returns the Agency received, and 80 percent of those returns were sent a refund. Based on data covering returns filed through February 22 of this year, over $121 billion in refunds have been returned to the American taxpayers, with an average refund of $3,143. This is up slightly over the 2018 filing season. I only mention this because some of the media and some here in the Congress have been obsessing over the size of refunds. As I pointed out many times, obsessing over the average size of refunds is simply wrongheaded and misleading. A week-to-week focus on the size of tax refunds makes no sense, given how wildly refunds can vary early in the filing season. Recent filing season data makes this very clear. Within a week, the average size of refunds went from being down 17 percent to being a little over 1 percent higher than last year so far this filing season. We have over 5 weeks of filing season to go. I expect there will continue to be variations in the data. Most importantly, the size of the tax refund is a stupid barometer of how taxpayers are faring this season compared to last--in other words, whether they had a tax increase or a tax decrease as a result of the tax bill of December 2017. A refund merely represents the extent to which a taxpayer has overpaid their taxes during the course of the year. It absolutely provides no insight into whether a taxpayer's tax burden has gone up or, for that matter, down. I hope the relative silence in the media about the filing season data released at the end of last week indicates that that media and Members of Congress who have complained about it finally come to understand all of this--that a refund up or down has nothing to do with whether you have a tax increase or decrease. Any further swings up or down will not generate sensational headlines that only confuse and misinform taxpayers. Those headlines have misled the American people. I hope this recent data will help put to rest accusations of some of my Democratic colleagues that the IRS sought to manipulate withholding tables to goose paychecks in 2018, because nothing could be further from the truth. The primary objective of the IRS in updating withholding tables was for a very sound reason of making sure that they are as accurate as possible. A report by the Government Accountability Office bears this out. In fact, there is not a single indication in the GAO report to suggest otherwise. The IRS followed the same process and procedures in updating withholding tables this year as it has in the previous years. Moreover, the report documents the extensive outreach that Treasury and the IRS conducted to inform taxpayers of the changes and to suggest that taxpayers check their withholding. Their outreach included updating and creating pages on their website using IRS email LISTSERVs and social media campaigns and sharing withholding materials with partners, including tax-related groups, large employers, employer associations, and organizations representing small businesses. So you see, they went to great lengths to alert the public to observe changes in the tax tables. However, no withholding table has been or ever will be perfect. Common sense dictates that. Every wage earner may be affected a little differently under the new law based on his or her personal circumstances. Because of personal circumstances, if there are 157 million tax filings, then, there could be 157 million different answers. The IRS continues to consider whether future improvements to the withholding structure may be necessary. I support these efforts and will monitor the outcome as chairman of the tax-writing Finance Committee. If the tables had not been updated, my guess is that our colleagues on the other side of the aisle would be singing a different tune. Instead of criticizing efforts to ensure that withholding tables more accurately reflect the new law, they would be claiming that we were trying to back-load the tax benefits, tricking taxpayers into believing their tax cut was larger than it was through oversized refunds. This actually may have been the right thing to do politically, but it would have been wrong, as a matter of principle or tax policy, and, quite [[Page S1728]] frankly, an organization like the IRS, usually far removed from politics, would not be involved in a political scheme like that. One exception to that is how the IRS, under Ms. Lerner, treated conservative organizations during the 2010, 2011, and 2012 years. The excess tax withheld from paychecks throughout the course of the year doesn't belong to the government. That is common sense. That belongs to the taxpayers who earned it. The government shouldn't intentionally withhold more than necessary. I am proud of the work my colleagues did to update the Tax Code last Congress. We delivered meaningful tax relief to middle-income taxpayers and to job creators. This has contributed to strong economic growth benefitting all Americans, hopefully, for years to come. The Treasury Department and the IRS has done good work to implement the law in a timely fashion. They will continue that good work to ensure that Americans receive their refunds as quickly as possible. As we progress toward the end of the filing season in April, the data being reported will fluctuate as taxpayers across a range of circumstances submit their returns. I hope that every time there is movement in the data, our friends across the aisle, and, more importantly, the misleading media will keep in mind two important facts that I mentioned earlier. First, tracking refund data on a weekly basis makes no sense, given how widely the data can vary. Second, and lastly, the focus on the size of the refunds is wrongheaded since it provides no indication as to whether a taxpayer's tax bill has gone up or down between 2018 filings and 2019 filings. Most everyone was oddly silent when the last batch of good data was released. So maybe we will not hear any more of this misleading information from the media. I hope we can have a more responsible and accurate discussion in the weeks ahead. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
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