Bill Cassidy Asks Trump's IRS Nominee How He Plans To Upgrade Agency's IT System

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During a Senate Finance Committee hearing last week, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) spoke about the need to upgrade the IRS' IT system.

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00:00You know, one thing I've been concerned about, which has really benefited my state,

00:10and I've seen that has benefited St. Louis when I visited St. Louis, is the Historic

00:17Preservation Easement Program. It will take an old building, which costs a lot to fix up,

00:22and you get a tax credit to do so, and you preserve a structure which, as I was once told,

00:28is both historic, iconic, and then catalytic for the neighborhood to upgrade. I saw an old post

00:35office in downtown St. Louis in which that was done. So I'm specifically interested in how the

00:42IRS will treat this, and particularly the property owners who protect these historic buildings using

00:48a historic preservation easement. On multiple occasions, the IRS Office of Chief Counsel

00:56has described their strategy as relates to historic preservation easements as guidance by litigation.

01:04Now, ideally, the IRS would accommodate the taxpayer up front so that the historic building owner can

01:12be confident that the tax deduction claimed under a congressionally authorized program is honored by the

01:19IRS. And by the way, Congress has repeatedly affirmed this program. Ronald Reagan has a great quote about

01:26this. It goes that far back. So do you agree that the IRS should reallocate enforcement resources

01:35towards front-end guidance and end the guidance by litigation campaign which has been used against these easements?

01:43Yes, I would most certainly, and earlier I'd mentioned that one of the things that I'm unusual to bring to the table,

01:51I'm only two and a half, and I mentioned that I served with nine of you in Congress, including yourself,

01:55just on this one committee here. And being someone that had just left Congress two and a half years ago,

02:01I want my people to have access, with your all's permission, to the Finance Committee, to the Ways and Means Committee,

02:07so that we know when these are written and how to carry them out. We don't have to guess for two,

02:11four, six, eight, 10, 12, 15 months before they decide how to do it. So I agree with you. Yes.

02:16I appreciate that. And then, and going specifically to the historic tax credits, as I've said,

02:24they can be historic, catalytic, iconic and catalytic. And so, under the previous administration,

02:32the Commissioner Werfel requested additional national or statewide extension for completing

02:42grandfathered HTCs. So during the COVID pandemic, a lot of stuff got shut down. And there was a time

02:47limit as to when this could be executed. But COVID shut things down. And their response was because

02:57an extension had been granted for some projects early in the pandemic, no further relief could be provided.

03:02But it didn't address additional disasters which had occurred, which significantly impacted that.

03:08So, I guess what I'm saying is, just because there was a pandemic requiring relief, does not mean

03:16that if a hurricane hits, there's not another circumstance in which relief would again,

03:23again be required, reasonably required. Not because I couldn't make my note, but rather because,

03:28wait a second, you blew out the place and all the workers have been moved to another place to,

03:32like, put roofs on people. So, I'm asking if you confirm if you would do anything to revisit this.

03:38Anything? What? I'm sorry?

03:40Anything to revisit this kind of, oh wait, you've had, you've had a COVID era

03:45extension. So therefore, you never again qualify, no matter what other circumstances there are.

03:49In my office in Rayburn, I had several pictures right in my little area where you walk in there,

03:55where the receptionist sit. And of all pictures of presidents and whatever,

04:02the thing that got the most attention in my office was a little brown sign about this big square

04:07letter that in white letters, and it said, bring back common sense. And what you're talking about

04:14is common sense. So yes, I agree. And I think that we all need to work together and figure out

04:24common sense. I like that answer. Then I get one more question in real quickly.

04:28If you go back to the Reagan era once more, there is headline after headline saying how IRS has missed

04:34their deadlines for IT upgrades. And yet under the federal government, there is an off-the-shelf

04:40modernization effort that you can, if there's something in the private sector that meets your

04:45need, you can employ that. Now, it seems as if most federal agencies want to write their own.

04:52They want to do their own coding as opposed to go out to somebody and say, will you come do it for us

04:57using your already done? So your approach to how you would upgrade the IT, which is again,

05:04woefully in need of upgrading? Well, I think that we have to go. There's a lot of big companies

05:13that deal with more people than the IRS does. And they seem to be able to pull off things seamlessly

05:20with all their IT. And I think that in sales, they say success leaves clues and failure does too.

05:27I think we need to take the clues from private sector. And if we can get things from them,

05:33which I've had a million people and I've said, I'm not doing anything with IRS. I can't talk to you.

05:38Call me back after confirmation if I'm fortunate enough to be confirmed and we can visit that. But

05:42I think that we need to look at what private sector is doing and run the government a little bit more

05:49that way. Thank you very much. I yield. Thank you.

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