Talking Tax

The nation is unpacking what comes next with Donald Trump's second presidency and with a Senate that flipped from Democratic to Republican. One of the biggest questions that remains unanswered is how this impacts upcoming talks over myriad provisions in the GOP's signature 2017 tax law that expire at the end of 2025. Idaho Republican Sen. Mike Crapo—no stranger to tax policy and negotiations—becomes chair of the Senate Finance Committee and will have a major hand in what happens with those expiring provisions that were part of the legislation known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Crapo is seen as a behind-the-scenes operator but his new role puts him at the center of talks to decide what to keep and what to jettison from a tax package that could have a price tag in the trillions of dollars. A second Trump presidency also has implications for the IRS. Republicans have threatened to claw back supplemental IRS modernization funding, and have criticized the agency's focus on the Direct File program, offering free f