United States Congress Joint Committee on Taxation
The Joint Committee on Taxation is a joint committee of the US Congress . Five members of the Senate and five of the House of Representatives sit on the committee . They come from the Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee .
The duties of the committee are:
- To examine the processes, effects and administration of federal taxes
- To explore ways to make tax legislation easier
- Prepare reports based on these investigations
- Critically review every tax refund and tax credit over $ 2 million
history
Senator James J. Couzens moved in 1924 that the Senate create a temporary committee to investigate the Bureau of Internal Revenue . At the time, there were numerous reports of inefficiency and waste within the agency, as well as numerous allegations that the tax return method provided numerous incentives to bribe tax officials. One of the key tasks the committee was supposed to investigate was estimating the value of oil drilling rigs - there seemed to be no system, no coherence, and no competent oversight of the procedures that were going on at the time.
After the Senator publicly accused the bureau in 1925 of withholding millions of dollars in taxes from the state through preferential treatment of large companies, that same bureau shortly thereafter informed him to pay back $ 10 million in personal taxes. At the time, Treasury Secretary Andrew W. Mellon was believed to be primarily responsible for carrying out this retaliation against Couzens. Mellon was the main owner of Gulf Oil , a company that had benefited significantly from the actions of the Bureau attacked by Couzens.
The investigations of the Senate committee led to the Revenue Act of 1926 , which provided, among other things, to create a joint committee to oversee the tax authorities. A temporary commission originally set up by the House of Representatives was supposed to oversee the work of the tax authorities. The Senate tightened the proposal and proposed a standing committee with permanent staff and a further investigation. Finally, the Senate version got into the Revenue Act.
The joint committee's first chief of staff was LH Parker, who had served as a senior official on Senator Couzens' committee of inquiry. The committee published its first report on the activities of the federal tax authorities on December 31, 1927; it contained several proposals to simplify the tax system and make it more transparent, including for income tax.
Since 1928, the types of taxes the committee examines have increased, as has the minimum financial limit at which it operates rose from $ 75,000 to $ 2,000,000.