Reacting to news today that the recently-reintroduced Charitable Conservation Easement Program Integrity Act is being offered as an amendment to the Senate’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework package, Pete Sepp, President of National Taxpayers Union (NTU), offered the following statement:
“Just one week ago, NTU published a joint statement to Congressional leaders from three taxpayer organizations, warning that the Charitable Conservation Easement Program Integrity Act ‘would create dangerous precedents for the entire system of tax administration.’ Including this legislation in the infrastructure package doesn’t diminish those precedents, and in fact worsens their impact.
As the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework evolved, Senate negotiators wisely decided to delete provisions giving the IRS excessive latitude to reduce the tax collection gap through ill-considered new enforcement powers. Reversing that course now, through an amendment to the package that effectively ratifies a host of heavy-handed IRS tactics, sends an ominous signal to taxpayers throughout the system -- not just those who have claimed conservation easement tax deductions. It would mean that the worst is yet to come as Congress soon debates whether and how to increase the IRS’s annual appropriation.
Law-abiding Americans should not have to fear that the protections they’ve won in five separate taxpayer rights laws enacted since 1988 will be weakened or set aside. Besides, farsighted tax administrators know that more investments in customer service and helping citizens understand how to comply with tax laws can have a better long-term payoff than simply ramping up enforcement tactics."
The retroactive Charitable Conservation Easement Program Integrity Act would take tax administration in the wrong direction, and the Senate should steer clear of it. There are far more productive paths forward.”