TEI Roundtable No. 37; Lessons Learned From TCJA Implementation: What are the implications for Biden's proposals?

• Author: Camp, David
• Position: Tax Executives Institute, Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017

This roundtable was conducted on October 27 as the closing plenary session of TEI's 76th Annual Conference in Florida. The session, Lessons Learned From TCJA Implementation and Implications for Biden's Proposals, featured four distinguished panelists who shared their perspectives on the practical implementation and administration of business tax reform legislation: the Honorable David Camp of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and former chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means; the Honorable Mike Desmond of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP and former chief counsel for the Internal Revenue Service; Brian Kaufman, vice president and tax counsel at Capital One Financial Corporation and TEI vice president, Region IV; and Nancy Loube, a member of TEI's US International Tax Committee and vice president and tax counsel at Brunswick Corporation. Ben Willis, contributing editor at Tax Analysts, moderated the session. The roundtable below represents selected highlights from the discussion.

Ben Willis: Good morning, everyone. I've got to start with a quick story. I was recently reminded of a childhood memory of mine. I was told as a teenager, "You know, I never realized you're funny until just now." I said, "Gee thanks, Mom." TEI just made me feel the same exact way. I don't know if you've seen the description for this roundtable discussion, but it starts off with "We're concluding this year's conference with a twist: Ben Willis will be moderating." A twist? I mean, we're all dedicated practitioners, right? I represented some of you. I now realize that it's taken me three years to realize that I am a member of the media. Now, I hope it does not take Congress as long to realize the taxpayers, you, need to understand and implement reconciliation legislation. And that is the theme of today's discussion. Before I introduce our incredible panelists for a great discussion, I want to thank TEI and Watson McLeish for putting together this incredible conference. Chairman Camp, how practical do you think Congress can be with reconciliation legislation and its implementation?

David Camp: First of all, it's great to be here in person. Thanks to TEI for having me, and great to see so many people. I know a number of people are listening online as well. I would say that when you get to this point in the policymaking or legislating process there's really two big factors that are driving. I would say that the tax administration portion is the least of the items that members of Congress are thinking about. But one is revenue and how will the policies fit within the revenue prescriptions, and clearly the Senate rules have a lot to do with this as well. The second part at this point in the process is, What are you hearing from members? You've spent months hearing from interested taxpayers and from businesses. What are members going to do in this case, with such narrow majorities? Are members are going to have problems with the policies that are being presented? If you had told me four months ago that the corporate tax rate increase was going to be off the table in this reconciliation process, I would bet that would not be, that there would be some corporate increase. It appears now that it may be off the table. So, what you've got are one or two members, particularly in the Senate, that can literally change policy. So, in past reconciliations you've been able to sort of set aside more members and not worry about just a couple of them. And so, I think that's made this a much more complicated process. I guess my quick answer would be "not very practical."

Willis: I know I've argued that there's more influence in the executive branch when it comes to reconciliation legislation now because of the speed of things and the importance of the Green Book and budget proposals. Chairman Camp, is there a new avenue through Treasury or the executive branch generally to lobby their concerns?

Camp: Yeah, that's a really good point. We have a three-legged stool: the Senate, the House, and the administration. Particularly when all three are the same party, the administration now has a tremendous voice. Obviously, its resources and Treasury expertise help. You know, when I was working on tax reform, I worked very hard to try to engage Treasury in the process. They weren't particularly interested. That really came from the top. So, it wasn't really any fault of the people in the Treasury...