Congress Passes Supplemental; Cease-Fire in the Capital On May 24, Congress sent President Bush a version of the $120 billion supplemental war funding bill that he signed into law. The final bill (H.R. 2206) — also raises the minimum wage for the first time in over ten years, a fact that seems to have been lost in national news coverage. Congress Approves Budget Resolution On May 17, Congress achieved a basic benchmark of responsible fiscal governance — passing a final budget resolution. The votes were close (Senate 2" target="_blank">52-40, House

The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday ($) on a plan in Congress to require private brokerage and financial companies to report the "basis" amount of securities that were sold in a given year. This plan was released last week by the Senate Finance committee and it is estimated that it will bring in $11 billion in unpaid capital gains taxes each year - a small, but substantial portion of the overall tax gap related to non-wage income. This is a straight-forward commons sense idea that would help to equalize the treatment of work and wealth in the U.S., at least within the IRS. Currently, payroll taxes (and to a large extent income taxes) are easily calculated directly by the IRS because employers are required to report the amount of income they pay their employees to the IRS. Because of this system, it is very difficult to cheat or make a mistake on your payroll or income taxes and easy for the IRS to catch you if you do (unless you are self-employed, in which case you are reporting your own income to the IRS). But there is no similar requirement for reporting of capital gains taxes (or loses). When individuals report their capital gains or losses, say, from selling shares of stock in a company, they need to calculate the difference between what they paid for the stock, and what they sold it for. The amount they paid for the stock is called the basis. It is much more difficult for the IRS to verify the individual has calculated their tax liability correctly because it does not receive confirmation of the basis for sales of stock and other securities. This plan would help prevent individuals from intentionally cheating or making a mistake in their capital gains and loses by providing the IRS with a way to check individual returns. It would require reporting requirements for income made from wealth to match the reporting requirements for income made from work. While the $11 billion per year brought into the government is actually a small amount compared to the overall tax gap, this proposal would collect sufficient revenues to pay for the entire SCHIP reauthoization bill being debated this year. There are no details on how soon the plan would be introduced as legislation, but with both Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-MT) and Ranking Member Charles Grassley (R-IA) supporting the plan, it is likely it will be broadly supported in the Senate.

The Joint Committee on Taxation's 10-year score of the $4.8 billion "Small Business and Work Opportunity Tax Act," adopted by Congress yesterday as part of the $120 billion war spending supplemental bill (now awaiting the president's signature) is: here.

House Approves Minimum Wage Increase Largely overlooked in the month-long test of wills between the White House and Congress over the war supplemental is the fact that, at long last (about a decade), an increase in the federal minimum wage will almost certainly be signed into law in the next 24 hours. It was included as part of the $22.2 billion supplemental package of domestic and security-related items not requested by President Bush. It passed the House moments ago, 348-73