Joint Hearing on the Tax Treatment of Financial Products
Committee on Ways and Means, Committee on Finance
“Thank you Mr. Chairman, Chairman Camp, Sen. Hatch, and to all of you.
“We all join you in thanking Tom Barthold and your staff for all of your usual hard and effective work, and to thank our three witnesses.
“Clearly there’s been an explosion in terms of financial instruments. This explosion has been part of the downturn in the economy. I don’t think we understood fully what was happening. We essentially had an increasing number of instruments that had similar economic features but were taxed in a very different way, and sometimes not taxed at all. And very importantly, there was very little transparency.
“And so it’s clear that today is vastly different than it was in 1986 and I think we very much need to delve into this as we undertake tax reform.
“But I’d like to bring a sense of urgency and reality to today because while we are considering this report, and I don’t think anybody has had a chance -- except those who wrote it -- to fully master it.
“What we clearly have to master is action the next couple of weeks because we have unresolved issues that are in the domain of our two committees and as we sit today these issues are unresolved.
“The payroll tax cut remains very much uncertain; over 150 million Americans have their taxes at stake. We have over 6 million people who may be out of their unemployment insurance next year if we don’t act. That would be, except for the Great Depression, historic in this country.
“We have SGR, also in our jurisdiction, that remains to be resolved and here we are just a few weeks before Christmas. And while it’s important that we hold this hearing today I think it is clear that we cannot leave Washington for the holidays until these issues are resolved.
“I wanted to thank Tom and your staff and our three witnesses for coming. But I also wanted to strike a note of absolute urgency on the issues that are within the domain of our two committees, within the domain of Congress, and I think today are in the domain of the people of our country.
“I hope in these next weeks we’ll see some effective action in response to these needs."
