Political Quotes

“I rise as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee to strongly support the Senate's passage of an important tax bill, H.R. 3043, the Tribal General Welfare Exclusion Act of 2014. This bill will improve the application of the Federal income tax in Indian Country and in doing so will reflect appropriate respect for the sovereignty of tribal governments. By way of background, the Federal Tax Code treats most payments that individuals receive, and the value of some services they receive, as taxable income. There is an exclusion, though, for payments and services received under programs conducted by State and local governments. It's called the general welfare exclusion, and it covers things like housing assistance, emergency medical care, and education assistance. These are traditionally treated as nontaxable. Unfortunately, the IRS has had difficulty applying the general welfare exclusion when it comes to benefits provided by tribal governments to tribal members. In order to determine which benefits were excluded from taxation, the IRS began conducting aggressive audits, leaving the tax treatment of many tribe-provided benefits in doubt. As Delores Pigsley, chairman of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians Tribal Council, put it in a letter to me, ``for several years, the IRS has sought to tax tribal government programs and services.'' This, in turn, has undermined tribal sovereignty and hindered economic and social development.…”