senator rob portman of ohio cheers this finance subcommittee hearing. >> thank you all for being here. we will talk about irs reform today and i know my ranking member, sarah warner, has another engagement before long so we will try to go through this quickly and when it come time for questions, i will refer to him. just to start, this is a really important topic to me. know tax policy is important and we've got a historic new tax location congress is trying to implement, but perennially we have these taxpayer service and tax at ministration issues that are going to arise, so this is an opportunity to examine current issues related to the tax administration. is that loud enough? particular focus on customer service and information technology, interaction with practitioners, low income taxpayers and tax administration issues related to workers in the high-tech economy where now in. senator hatch and ranking member member warner,i appreciate you being here today. irs calls were not being answered by the thousand. i.d. systems were not working. autumn line, the american public loss faced

once again, i thank you for this opportunity and i look forward to your questions. >> chairman portman, ranking member warner and members of the subcommittee. thank you for your interest in know whiching the operations of the internal revenue service and for inviting me to discuss improving the agency. as you know, the irs restructuring and reform act of 1998 was signed into law 20 years ago this week. at the time, i was director of a low-income taxpayer clinic in richmond, virginia and invied vited to testify about the experiences of low income taxpayers at senate hearings. brought about many taxpayer protections, nonetheless, the world of tax administration looks very different today than at time ra98 was passed. the irs desperately needs congressional support and direction to do a better job of fulfilling vital mission. in my written statement, i discussed the core challenges they believe congress and the irs should focus on to improve tax administration. i will quickly highlight the following points. first, irs oversight. ra98 contained two provisions that i believe were helpful to

portman: i've traveled around the world and looking at their online accounts. united kingdom one way to sign into your account is that your erotic -- direct to amazon or your bank. have ane you already online account and you sign on to them and that message is sent --hmrc.hmr see they have a much higher ability to get their taxpayers into account. australia has put into effect with recognition and in this -- it is in its infancy but that is very interesting. the report looked at different authentication methods and some of those methods are discussed. the other thing that i have seen and i raised this with senior leadership of the irs is they have the same level of security for if you are trying to get into account, pull information out as they send information in. taxpayers who just want to send in email just send in email with a picture of a document have to be able to in a pilot sign onto an online account and go through this authentication. they are not pulling in information or accessing their account. why don't we think about another level for people just

[laughter] >> chairman portman, ranking member warner and members of the subcommittee. thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today. on improving tax administration, it is a great privilege and honor to speak with you about the vita program. i'm the project director of prosperity now opportunity network and in my role i lead a national network of more than 2500 stakeholders, including volunteers, community, corporate and philanthropic partners and others. a network is a convening body for them providing a way for them to connect to one another, we provide tools, resources, information and capacity building support to strengthen vita programs, ensure quality return preparation and help to extend the reach of the vita program to more low income americans. however, the views i express today are reflective of personal experiences as a vita volunteer and program manager. i'm proud to stand among the ranks of the 55,000 tax nerds who volunteer and give our time to help low income americans. for the last two years, i've served as vita volunteer, co site coordinato

i'm sorry, senator portman, he didn't like those michael cohen questions.'t want -- he didn't wann to have any to say. there are a lot of other republican senators, they don't seem to be as ready just take the president's side as they were even two weeks ago. >> they like the trump administration would rather robert mueller go away. and i think cohen's claim that the resident knewout the trump tower meeting is basically a message to robert mueller and saying that this claim, given the evidence, if he has any, which he has n produced to date, would help you, robert muelior, in your construof an obstructionas of justice ce against the president. that's where it seems to me the mueller investigation has been trending for someti . this would be another bullet point in thua eve report to congress where robert mueller dent say, yes, the pre interfered with this investigation. >> but from what we know of robert mueller,e either has evidence already to corroborate he will not be relying on michael cohen as a key witness. one has t to thinkat a lot of people, people

corker: senator portman? sen. portman: thank you, chairman. mr. secretary, thank you for coming back to testify again. you've had a long afternoon, i think you ought to do it more often. while you've been here we managed to negotiate a successful preliminary agreement with the european union. you managed to issue a declaration supporting, we're hoping to see with regard to crimea and a third thing that happened, i don't know if it's good or bad, but it is my understanding the white house decided to postpone the visit of president putin until the end of the year. sec. pompeo: when i left my business it began to succeed as well. here.ome down sen. portman: i think they wait until you're gone to make all these decisions. no. i want to comment briefly on what you responded to with senator coons on what tools could we use with regard to pushing back on some of the interference in other countries elections. i hoped that you would say the global engagement center, because it's a tool you have, and frankly, although senator murphy and i wrote legislation

rob portman is here. a former u.s. trade representative.se issues, i know that you know them well. you care about them. do support the administration's plan to give out this $12 billion in aid? >> not the way that chuck schumer just described it. but interesting how he has already been partisan about this. but i think a much better solution is to resolve these trade disputes to be able to open up more markets. that's what farmers want. they want trade, not aid as they tell me. i was home last week, home this week and i will hear the same thing. but we do have serious trade disputes with the countries including china where china does not play by the rules. as you know, dana, through the years, administration trying to ask china to open up the market and change some of their behaviors that have led to the theft of u.s. intellectual property. which allows them to leapfrog us in terms of technology. there are legitimate issues. the better resolution is not an aid package or $12 billion that has been talked about. but in a short term, that may b

rob portman is a member of the foreign relations committee.ks like this legislation is still being pushed and still will happen. republicans are leading the effort. are you for that effort? >> i think we need to clarify the fact that we believe the russians did intervene in our election. that they tried to destabilize democracies around the world and we need to push back. that is the consensus of not just the intelligence community, it's the consensus here on the middle among republican-led intelligence communities. the house and senate intelligence committee came up with the same conclusion. it's not a matter of dispute. we have done a number of things like historic sanctions on russia, increasing our military budget which has been effective in putting more pressure on russia because we have nor troops in eastern europe. providing weapons for the ukrainians that the obama administration wouldn't do. look at what congress has done. we've done a number of things to push back. there's a disinformation group at the state department that pushes ba

pat toomey and rob portman campaigned against the tpp. i think republican elected officials understand we are in the coalition that a little bit different than the one they all signed up for. i think question is how do democrats handle it. thus far the democratic party has said good riddance to the trump motor. i'm always very leery of that argument because people's lives change and you never can say that you're gonna vote the way you were born the rest your life. it just doesn't happen that way. parties have to win the election they are in. there are a lot of signs that point to the fact that democrats are not adjusting to this coalition. we also have other evidence. which not confine ourselves to a political discussion because this movement of activating we do. we now live in a world where leaders are just as food as political leaders. we cite the book coming apart which was written in 2012. if you. reporter: the book you'll see it makes the election make a lot more sense. he talked about a hundred 82 swing votes on how they were being

so once again, senator portman is leading the way in the senate on so many issues. but, mr. president, what i want to do this afternoon was say a few words about the president's visit to nato and the nato meeting that we just had and talk about the importance of alliances and our allies. i think if you read in the press now, i think overall you see this trip, you see the meeting. the president met with all the nato leaders in brussels, that overall was a good trip. there's been this commitment by nato members since at least 2014, but it really goes way earlier than 2014 for each country to spend 2% or more of their g.d.p. on defense spending. so we share the burdens of defense. now, the united states has slings always -- -- has essentially always, always, met this target, easily met this target, but a lot of other countries haven't. and they've heard time and time again from presidents and yet they've kind of ignored it. the success of this trip is that it looks like, for the first time really in years, nato countries are moving away from cuts in defense spending. by the way

we are joined by rob portman, ceo of an investment technology group. would say, markets and away are probably still fixated on mifid ii, are they? >> yes they are, to a large extent, a lot of the changes are still playing out in the capital markets. one of the two big themes of policy unbundling, which was separation of research and execution to make the purchase of research and make it a more transparent process. another one was the reduction and management of dark trading come up again with the policy objective of making the markets more transparent. we looked at both of those aspects, and we think that the policymakers have largely achieved most of their objectives. nothing is ever perfect, and we will see the narrative play out in the way that they had expected. nejra: so far, how has the trading landscape changed? rob: in particular on the trading process, and in equities in particular, which is one of the main focuses on mifid ii, what we have seen is largely what was expected. an evolution of institutional trading moving to these large blocks, w

said, senator portman. >> or marco rubio. >> and he just immediately threw all of them under the bus and made them all look like fools today. >> don't worry, lindsey graham has a statement that says there's no bus for lindsey graham, don't worry. i've just been reassured unequivocally by the white house legislative team that the president's response to shouted questions was not intended to suggest that president trump doubts the intelligence community's assessment that russia is continuing to attack our critical infrastructure in the 2018 elections. i'm very pleased to hear this and stand ready to work with the administration to harden our electoral system against all foreign interference, including russia. >> that's because lindsey graham is trying to keep the government together to resist this russian threat and not score political points right now. the problem for trump is that this issue is not going away. george will calls them helsinki republicans. and they are going to have a real problem with what is now becoming increasingly known as the helsinki humiliation. these issues, u

. >> senator portman. >> thank you. mr. chairman. mr. secretary, thank you for coming back to testify again. you have had a long afternoon. i think you ought to do it more often. while you have been here we managed to negotiate a successful preliminary agreement with the european union. you managed to issue a declaration supporting -- with regard to crimea. there was a third thing that happened. i don't know if it's good or bad. the white house is decided to postpone the visit of president putin until after the first of the year. >> when i left my business it began to succeed, as well. so i'll -- i'll come down here. >> i think they wait until you're gone to make the decisions. no. i want to comment briefly on what you responded to. with senator coons on what tools to use with regard to pushing back on some of the interference and other countries' elections. i'd hoped that you would say the global engagement center. because it's a tool you have. and frankly, although senator murphy an i wrote legislation to give you authority to do it, y

, there's a provision that potentially implicates abortion, and so a pro-life republican like rob portmanwho's also pro lgbt, would have a hard time signing on, and there are a couple of planks and provisions. conservatives' criticism of the equality act isn't that it's anti-lgbt, but it's that's it's written so broadly that it precludes passage. >> well, that was the same position we were in with the employment non-discrimination act, and it was very difficult to bring people across. but when they say "too broadly," they're talking about the same foundation on which we address race and gender, and so i don't think that's too broad. that's opportunity for all. >> well, there -- it's... i appreciate that that's what you say. that's not what conservatives are saying. i mean, conservatives think this bill is loaded with poison pills. why not write a bill that is narrow that you know you can get republican support on, republicans who we know are on the record supporting lgbt freedom in order to secure their votes? it seems like there's a pragmatic approach, and there's an ideological approach

ohio senator rob portman is chiming in with this to say i hope the president take this opportunity toake clear to president putin that russia's efforts to interfere are unacceptable and that russia's major must change if it hopes to haveimproved relations with the us election meddling is the one thing that all these tweets mention . a lot of our viewer comments say the key issue for them is nationalsecurity . >> jillian: a lot of people chiming in there and hillary clinton also chiming in. >> carley: she talked to twitter saying great rope, tough question for putin, do you know what which team you play for? you know that to is going to get a lot of reaction online and the president's supporters not letting her get away with that one. debra says he plays for america. that's more than we can say for you and another twitter user writes this. he works for our side, what site didyou work for when you sold uranium to russia? a lot of people attacking hillary clinton over this . >> rob: thanks so much. >> jillian: as carly mentioned, a finished brewery just released problem-solving beer . we

i want to follow up on some of the comments that were made by senator portman. on tax administration. but i wanted to start with the budget that senator carper ask you about. a series of budget years. the only reason you have an increase in this year's budget was to implement a new tax law. it did not deal with the underlining capacityy which in the within the irs itself. i appreciate the fact that you recognized you have to live within the funds that are appropriated i want you to do that. but i also want to know whether you would be an advocate on behalf of the men and women in the professional people that are there serving their country and trying to make sure our tax laws are administered fairly. they would have the resources they need in the support they need in order to be able to carry out their mission -- mission. will you be that type of adequate -- advocate? >> people who had known me theeo last word they would characterize me is shy. the committee any american taxpayers should anticipate that i will not on every door possible. d and you will be prepar

robert bork, the clarence thomas hearing, the judgment of miguel estrada blocked by a lower coin to portman if your republican use a democrat started this -- by a lower court of treatment. if you're a plug-in use a democrat started this. but if you're democrat you go back to mitch mcconnell by not allowing merits garlic -- merrick garland to get a shot. garland isrick certainly a qualified and pretty moderate judge by most accounts. it's not like he was some radical. republicans stopped him from getting confirmed and did not even give him the opportunity to prove himself. a situation where democrats feel that they won the popular vote this time, but lost the electoral college. now donald trump is about to it if amyyear-old, coney barrett were picked, would be on the supreme court for decades. you can understand why democrats feel like look, you have to fight this. ust: matt lewis will be with , if you want to asking questions about this process of choosing the next supreme court justice. for democrats (202) 748-8000, for republicans (202) 748-8001, and for independents (202) 748-8002. host:

. >> what does it cost marco rubio or corker or portman or any of these people to say, this is the nonsense that it looks like. >> would it cost them dearly. that's the political answer. the reality is that's what leadership requires. you could say that's what leadership is. saying the thing that's unpopular when it needs to be that, these members of congress are not willing to do it. some will say i want to be here to pass strong he sanctions on russia. i don't want to let the republicans, today you saw even them continuing to run interference for the president. the reality is the president thinks about collusion and meddling as the house and some in the senate who think those should be, some saying yes, it was meddling, no, it wasn't collusion. why doesn't the president treat it like that? there is a reason. it is because that he knows they're the same thing. >> even if you guy argument that they're different, he still thinks that he didn't do it. he says, does gop attitude approach response? no. he is totally irrational when it comes to the legitimacy of his election. he sees russia as a

speaking of cooler heads, rob portman joins us, from the foreign relations committee. this is up your alley. foreign relations, the president now pushing nato to the edge here. you got to, got to pay up and separately inviting their raft on these trade issues. are you surprised it's gotten the response it has, the european commission saying effectively, you know, watch your allies. you don't have that many of them? >> first on the 2% nato commitment, they ought to do it. the president is right on that. he has seen real problems. $14 billion more in defense spending in the last year. the european countries are starting to come on board. they understand that we've borne the lion's share for too long and it's time to step up. on trade, neil, we talked about this before, we have to be careful. if they're doing something unfair in terms of trade, yeah, use our unfair trade laws and go after them. use the wto rules. if you use a national security mechanism against trade, you don't have to prove any injury, you don't have to prove any unfair trade. you say it's because of our

supplying the trucking industry, she said in three months she'll be out of business> senator rob portman says he wants to support american steel and crack down on china's unfair trade. but he worries the administration is confusing our allies and china. in a largely symbolic vote earlier this week, the senate sent a message to the president that congress should play a role in implementing tariffs. the president seems unfazed. the administration is threatening even more tariffs in the weeks ahead.in washington, i'm jessica smith. (grant) ahead at nine... yet another outrageous situation stirring up controversy--- this time a of a black man who says he was harassed by an officer for just hanging out at the pool in his apartment complex... (vicki) plus... a woman loses her job after a racially charge