Kind and Skillman Talk New Formed House ‘Tax Teams’ with CQ Roll Call
Legislative & Public Policy practice senior counsel Ron Kind and managing director David Skillman were quoted in the CQ Roll Call article, “House GOP ‘tax teams’ in the spotlight as major expirations near.” The article discusses the House Ways and Means Committee’s recently formed “tax teams” that are tasked with preparing for the expiration of certain provisions of the 2017 tax law. Unlike past tax teams that were formed with similar goals, the new teams include House Republicans. Additionally, these teams are broken out by topic area instead of parts of the U.S. tax code.
Because the working groups are formed by broad topic areas, it makes it difficult to puzzle out which teams to engage with to ensure clients’ interests are heard, Skillman told CQ Roll Call. “The structure of the working groups is a little vague,” he said. “They haven’t formally delineated all of the differences, and so some of the topics are little self-selected by the members outside of the broad identifiers the committee gave.”
Kind, former member of the U.S. House of Representatives for 26 years, told CQ Roll Call that past working groups have been bipartisan, which gives Congress the opportunity to interact with colleagues who have different viewpoints and experiences, sometimes leading to bipartisan solutions. “It’s just another opportunity for members to get together, get in the same room, get to know each other, build up that elusive trust,” Kind said, adding that “we’ll see how this new approach goes.”
