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Ending a short shutdown of much of the federal government, which began Feb. 1, the House passed today a final consolidated fiscal year 2026 appropriations package, ensuring funding through Sept. 30 for all federal agencies except for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). This latest bill includes funding for the Treasury Department and the IRS, as well as that for defense, labor, health, education and other agencies.
DHS will operate under a two-week stopgap, while Congress debates changes to immigration enforcement that rose to the forefront of national politics during January.
The section of the appropriations bill that provides funding for the IRS includes $5 billion in enforcement funding, $3.2 billion in operations and technology support funding and $3 billion in taxpayer services funding for the agency. The $11.2 billion in IRS funding represents a cut of about 9% from fiscal year 2025.
However, buried elsewhere in the package is a provision clawing back $11.6 billion in supplemental 10-year IRS funding from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. The latest in a series of laws revoking money from this funding pool would leave only about $10 billion of the original $80 billion provided to the tax collection agency under the Biden administration’s signature law.
Senior GOP taxwriter announces retirement
Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Fla., who serves as the vice chair of the House Ways and Means Committee and chair of the health subcommittee, has announced that he will not run for reelection this year. Buchanan was first elected to Congress in 2006 and joined the taxwriting committee in 2011.
Buchanan previously served as chair of the Ways and Means Tax Subcommittee and has been a member of the Joint Committee on Taxation in recent years. He sought the chairmanship of Ways and Means in 2021 but lost out to Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo., the current chair.
The Floridian is the fourth Republican from the committee to announce plans to depart the House after this session, following Reps. David Schwikert, R-Ariz., (who is running for governor), Jody Arrington, R-Texas, and Randy Feenstra, R-Iowa (running for governor). Also retiring from Congress are three Democratic taxwriters, Reps. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas; Danny Davis, D-Ill.; and Dwight Evans, D-Penn.
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