• 3 months ago
On Tuesday, Rep. Bill Foster (D-IL) questioned the Department of Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on tax filing innovations during a House Financial Services Committee hearing.

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00:00The time has expired.
00:01With that, we'll go to the gentleman from Illinois.
00:03Mr. Foster is recognized for five minutes.
00:05Thank you.
00:06Secretary, was there anything you wanted to add
00:08about the oil camp policy
00:11that you didn't have a chance during the previous round
00:13of questioning?
00:14Thank you.
00:15Well, what I wanted to say is that an objective is
00:20to keep the oil market well supplied,
00:23so neither Americans nor residents
00:27of many countries around the globe, including the poorest,
00:32are faced with spiking energy prices,
00:35and we are considering additional sanctions
00:39on Soviet ships now that Russia's taken this approach,
00:43but we want to evaluate what the potential impact could be
00:48on global oil markets, and we're discussing that
00:52in an interagency basis.
00:54I'd also like to congratulate the administration
00:57on having made a significant amount of money with the SPR,
01:01the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, whereby you're sort
01:04of monetizing your ability to store oil, to be able to sell
01:08at a high price and refill at a low price
01:10and make the taxpayer a whole pile of money.
01:12So to the extent that you were at the table there, good work.
01:16I'd also like to second my congratulations
01:18on your successful pilot program for the IRS Free File System
01:22and believe it should be an option available
01:23to taxpayers at all income levels.
01:26I've been introducing legislation in this area
01:28for more than a decade, and so it's really nice
01:30to see it come to pass.
01:31And as a next step, in February,
01:33I reintroduced the Auto-Fill Act,
01:35which would allow individuals who choose
01:37to download tax forms that are automatically populated
01:41with information that the IRS already collects from employers,
01:45from the social security information,
01:47from financial institutions.
01:49You know, our tax code's complicated enough,
01:51and we shouldn't force people to keep around shoeboxes full
01:54of all these stubs they get, and they have to use them
01:56for their tax forms.
01:57And this would be a common sense solution available
02:01in most countries, to just have the government help you fill
02:04out the part of the forms
02:05with information they already have.
02:07So please consider that as a next step
02:09in strengthening this very successful pilot program.
02:12Okay, now on April 24th, President Biden signed the
02:17Repo Act, which gives the administration authority
02:20to seize Russian assets and use them for the benefit
02:22of Ukraine's war effort and their eventual reconstruction.
02:25Last month, the G7 agreed in principle
02:27to use the interest earned on frozen Russian assets to back
02:30a $50 billion loan for Ukraine.
02:33And following that meeting, you said that the logistics
02:36of such a loan were complicated
02:37and that you could not provide a timeline for getting
02:39that money to Ukraine.
02:41And since you've made those comments a few weeks ago,
02:43has progress been made to get the money to Ukraine,
02:46and what challenges are you running
02:47into from our G7 allies?
02:49Is there anything that Congress can do
02:50to speed this process along?
02:53Well, thank you for that.
02:54The leaders in the G7 asked that we'd be ready by the end
03:00of the year to transfer $50 million, billion dollars.
03:06So we're working very closely.
03:09Now the leaders have endorsed this general concept
03:13to work out the details.
03:15There are steps that the European Union needs
03:18to take to make sure
03:21that the windfall revenues will remain available
03:26to service these debts.
03:28We're discussing the allocation of the loan among G7 members.
03:35These are very intense discussions taking place
03:39right now.
03:39Anything we can do to provide additional leverage
03:41in those negotiations?
03:42We're, I think, on a bipartisan basis willing to do.
03:45Honestly, this is a collaboration.
03:47The G7 is working together constructively.
03:53There are some complex issues here,
03:56but we're working constructively to get this done.
03:59That the $50 billion loan could be the first of several,
04:02that this is the first tranche, and if necessary,
04:05there could be more behind it.
04:06So how far can this strategy go, and on what timescale
04:09to support Ukraine?
04:11You know, does this, what fraction of the amount
04:13of money you'd get by simply seizing
04:15and liquidating the Russian assets?
04:18Well, we think all options should remain on the table,
04:22and the Repo Act is a- But if you have to stick
04:24to this business with the loans and the using the interest
04:27income, what are the limits to that?
04:29We believe that a global approach, a strategy
04:34where the G7, the European Union act jointly together,
04:40is effective and appropriate.
04:43So we're looking for strategies
04:46that other countries can also endorse.
04:50And the issue of simply seizing assets,
04:54whereas we have been very clear,
04:57we believe there's a sound legal basis to do
05:01so in the United States and elsewhere.
05:04This has been something of a bone of contention.
05:07And so the approach that the G7 leaders have endorsed is
05:13an alternative which doesn't raise all of the same issues
05:18as seizing the assets would,
05:20and it lets us act together as a coalition.
05:24Well, thank you, and keep at it.

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