Tax News

CCH (cch.taxgroup.com) reports:

  President Obama on March 11 signed the Omnibus Appropriations Act (HR 1105), which provides $12.7 billion in funding for the IRS and $11.5 billion for the Treasury Department. The IRS budget includes $5.1 billion for enforcement, $2.3 billion for taxpayer service, $3.87 billion for operations support and $230 million for business systems modernization.

  The Treasury budget provides $146 million for the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. The omnibus package also contains a provision denying funding for the IRS's private debt collection program.

  The $410-billion fiscal year (FY) 2009 appropriations bill had drawn fire for containing more than 8,000 earmarks inserted by lawmakers, many of which were deemed a wasteful use of taxpayers' money. Obama acknowledged that he was signing an "imperfect" bill but that it is essential to continue government operations and not mire Congress at a critical point in the U.S. economic recovery.

Earmark Reform

  Separately, Obama announced several principles to prevent the abuse of earmarks in future appropriations bill and said that the FY 2009 omnibus package must "mark an end of the old way of doing business." The president said he expects Congress to send him future spending bills "without delay or obstruction so that we don't face another massive, last-minute omnibus bill like this one."

  By Paula Cruickshank, CCH News Staff

Tax-Related Sections of Omnibus Appropriations Act, 2009, as Passed by the House on February 25, 2009, HR 1105