The Senate is back in session today (September 14) for the first time since early August for a planned three-week legislative work period before they depart until after the November 3 midterm elections. The House is also back today for what is scheduled to be the last workweek until after the elections, with Republican leaders having announced that the House will give back the last two weeks in September — votes are not expected during the weeks of September 21 and September 28.

House — The House floor schedule includes many bills to be considered on the expedited suspension calendar (meaning a two-thirds supermajority required for passage), including measures the Ways and Means Committee passed July 1:

• End Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act (H.R. 9496) by Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY)
• Taxpayer Advocate Participation Act (H.R. 9498) by Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL)
• AI Tax Integrity Act (H.R. 9501) by Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL)
• Protecting Taxpayers from Ghost Preparers Act (H.R. 9499) by Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY)
• Tax Relief for Fraud Victims Act (H.R. 9500) by Rep. Max Miller (R-OH)

The House is also scheduled to vote under a rule — requiring simple majority support — on the Senate-passed sanctions bill (S. 5025), which includes the Supporting Early Childhood Educators' Deductions (SEED) Act (H.R. 5334), Ways and Means Committee member Rep. Jimmy Panetta's (D-CA) bill to allow early-childhood educators to deduct classroom expenses from their taxable income. Democrats including House Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Richard Neal (D MA) have criticized the sanctions bill for providing the Administration more tariff authority.

The Ways and Means Committee is expected to hold a markup on Wednesday, September 16 of health care legislation and a package of cryptocurrency tax proposals likely to reflect those discussed during a June 9 hearing on digital asset taxation. Bloomberg Tax reported that, "Several crypto tax bills, already considered at a committee hearing earlier this year, may get a vote as a single legislative package," and that the Committee may consider legislation concerning Medicare costs.

The cryptocurrency tax bills introduced by Committee Republicans June 8 included:

• The Less Tax Paperwork for Digital Asset Owners Act (H.R. 9178) by Rep. Rudy Yakym (R-IN), to provide a de minimis exclusion of gain or loss on digital assets used to pay a network fee (not available to a trader, broker or dealer or those with more than 5,000 digital asset transactions in a year) and to exclude gain or loss on stablecoins.
• The Tax Clarity for Mining and Staking Act (H.R. 9175) by Rep. Mike Carey (R-OH), to allow taxpayers to elect deferral of newly minted digital assets from inclusion in gross income, akin to the treatment of self-created property, and allow grantor trusts with digital assets to take staking rewards without risking their tax status.
• The Charitable Deductions for Digital Asset Donations Act (H.R. 9173) by Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA), to exempt digital asset donations from qualified appraisal requirements if they meet certain criteria.
• The Providing Analogous Rules for Digital Assets Act (H.R. 9176) by Rep. David Kustoff (R-TN), to allow digital assets to qualify for safe harbors that allow foreign persons to more easily invest in US markets, to lend digital assets without triggering a taxable event, and allow digital asset dealers and traders to use mark-to-market accounting.
• The Digital Assets Voluntary Disclosure Program Act (H.R. 9174) by Rep. Aaron Bean (R-FL), to provide a voluntary disclosure program for taxpayers who failed to comply with tax law related to digital assets to come back into compliance.
• The Applying Existing Tax Anti-Abuse Rules to Digital Assets Act (H.R. 9172) by Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-TX), to apply wash sale and constructive sale rules to digital assets.

Punchbowl News reported that the cryptocurrency tax proposal is likely to include a rollback of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act's (OBBBA) change to IRC Section 165(d) to limit the deduction for wagering losses to 90% of the amount of such losses during a tax year, and that the mining and staking portion, reflecting Rep. Carey's bill, may be omitted in the interest of drawing bipartisan support. A major point of contention during the June 9 hearing was the potential limitless deferral of staking awards, which Rep. Steven Horsford (D-NV) — who has a separate cryptocurrency bill with Rep. Miller — proposed to be limited to five years.

Senate — The Senate is back in session today with a vote at 5:30 p.m. related to a judicial nomination. Nominations are expected to be the focus of this work period.

A Senate Finance Committee hearing on the nomination of James Gadwood, a tax controversy lawyer, to be IRS Chief Counsel is expected to be scheduled for Tuesday, September 15. Also to be considered at the hearing are the nominations for Andrew De Mello to be a Tax Court judge and two Health and Human Services nominees. On Wednesday, September 16, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee will hold a hearing for Surgeon General nominee Nicole Saphier and an HHS nominee.

Politico Inside Congress on September 9 reported that decisions must be made regarding Senate consideration of the Protect College Sports Act (S. 4668), which would establish requirements for name, image, or likeness (NIL) agreements for college student athletes and provides a limited antitrust exemption for schools and conferences to pool and sell certain college sports media rights.

The bill has already drawn concerns from members in big SEC states, like Senators Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) and Josh Hawley (R-MO). The report said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) faces a decision over whether to steer members to support the bill, which also faces opposition from labor rights groups. "Backing it would mean supporting top Commerce Democrat Maria Cantwell's [D-WA] efforts in crafting the bipartisan legislation that has taken months of painstaking negotiations with her counterpart, Chair Ted Cruz," the report said. NBC News reported on September 13 that advocates for college athletes are concerned that the bill doesn't include adequate player protections.

Crypto — On Tuesday (September 15), the Senate will hold a much-anticipated vote to invoke cloture on a motion to proceed to the Clarity Act (H.R. 3633), a bill establishing a market structure for cryptocurrency and other digital assets. Even with several Republicans having expressed concern about the bill's language allowing crypto platforms to pay yield on stablecoin assets, which the banking industry has argued will lead to a flight of deposits from community banks, most Republicans are expected to support ending debate on moving to the bill. The question is thus whether a bloc of crypto-friendly Senate Democrats will produce the 10 or 11 votes likely necessary to move the Senate onto the bill. A new version of the bill released last week by Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) and other GOP sponsors made some changes to the bill's treatment of "DeFi" platforms — decentralized finance protocols that have no central intermediary and are often used by bad actors to move money — but no changes to other key hurdles, like ethics restrictions for senior federal employees or the thorny stablecoin-rewards issue. GOP sponsors then released another new version of the bill text late Sunday night, reportedly with revisions to both ethics language and stablecoin yield, in a last-minute bid to recruit more Democratic support before the vote.

Senate Democrats held a caucus meeting Sunday night devoted to the Clarity Act, and President Trump reportedly met late last week with outgoing White House crypto adviser Patrick Witt and others to discuss the ethics language proposed in July by Senators Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), which would likely require the President to divest his family's lucrative crypto holdings while giving state attorneys general a role in enforcing the ethics restrictions. Witt appeared to dismiss both ideas in an interview with Semafor last week. Witt also suggested that the President would move ahead with nominating Democratic commissioners to the SEC and CFTC — neither of which currently has any Democrats serving — if Senate Democrats help to pass the bill, while warning that if the Clarity Act doesn't pass in this Congress, both market regulators will move quickly to bypass Congress and approve new rules governing the digital assets space.

Tax — There have been many press stories focused on congressional reaction to President Trump's proposal, announced during a Republican convention in Texas September 9, to provide citizens a $5,000 post-election dividend. The President said: "If the Republicans win the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, both of them, because of our economic — tremendous economic success, like in history we've never had anything like what's happening, but because of our tremendous strength and success economically, I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000. Very much like a successful company will do a cash distribution to its shareholders."

Some key members are supportive of the effort. "This is something he wants to accomplish, and there's billions of dollars that's coming in with his tariffs," Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO) said on Newsmax, the Washington Examiner reported, adding that Smith said that Trump wants to give money back to people. "Because it's the people's money, the less money that the government has and the more that you have in your pocketbook is [Trump's desire], and we're working towards it," Smith said. Vice President JD Vance has also suggested the money could come from tariff revenue.

A Washington Sun reporter cited Senate Budget Chairman Ron Johnson (R-WI) as saying he'd consider the $5,000 dividend idea "within the framework of tax simplification" and paired with offsets. "I am always happy to consider allowing taxpayers to keep more of their hard-earned money within the framework of tax simplification, rationalization, and deficit reduction. Estimates of fraud within federal spending range between $250 billion to $1 trillion per year — eliminating this waste would provide more than adequate pay-fors, NOT by reducing benefits." And Senator Bernie Moreno (R-OH) posted on social media September 9, "I will get a bill ready so that we can get the Trump Dividend passed immediately after the November 3rd election … because Republicans (and America) will win!"

Not all Republicans were enthusiastic. "We're $40 trillion in debt," said Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC), vice chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, in a September 10 New York Times story that added that Norman called the idea "far-fetched." He said, "To make that dependent on keeping the House, I think, is problematic and I don't know where the money comes from."

Semafor noted September 10 that President Trump "made a similar move in 2018, floating a "middle-class tax cut" if Republicans won the midterms — but the effort came to nothing."

Separately, an editorial in the September 12 Wall Street Journal, "Don't Tax the Unicorns," focused on the benefits of the Qualified Small Business Stock gain exclusion for start-up companies that Congress made significantly more generous after 2009 and 2010. The OBBBA modified the QSBS gain exclusion by providing a tiered gain exclusion for QSBS acquired after July 4, 2025. Referring to a National Bureau of Economic Research-published working paper on the issue, the editorial said, "The central insight is that by improving the return investors can hope to achieve, this capital-gains tax cut encouraged more risk-taking."

Economy — There is also attention on the affordability concerns of voters, increasing inflation reflected in last week's Consumer Price Index, and a recent focus on diesel fuel prices. The American Automobile Association (AAA) said the $6.2040 diesel price on September 13 was the highest recorded average price. Kevin Hassett, the director of the White House National Economic Council, acknowledged on Fox Business September 11 "There's a big, big issue with diesel because it's a refined product, [and] a lot of the refining is in places that are disturbed by conflict … " There has been additional reporting on diesel fuel cost concerns in the Iowa Senate race.

There are also concerns with measures of inflation. "Since the first heightened inflationary report came out this spring, the administration has promised the economic disruption would be short-lived. But each monthly report has shown otherwise, despite the White House's efforts to cool some of the price increases," a Washington Post report, "Stubborn inflation leaves GOP with higher prices past the midterms," said of last week's CPI report. "The Labor Department's consumer price index rose at a 3.4 percent annual pace for the year ending in August, the same as in July, with energy prices making up a big chunk of all increases."

IRS — Treasury and the IRS on September 10 released proposed regulations (REG-117273-25) under IRC Sections 904(b)(5) and 250(b)(3) related to the allocation and apportionment of deductions to (1) IRC Section 951A net controlled foreign corporation (CFC) tested income (NCTI category income) for foreign tax credit limitation purposes and (2) deduction-eligible income (DEI) for purposes of the deduction for foreign-derived deduction eligible income (FDDEI).

Global tax — On September 11, the OECD released a revised GloBE Information Return that incorporates the elections provided for in the January 2026 Side-by-Side package. A Treasury Department news release said key provisions of the revised GIR include:

• Adding a field for U.S.-headquartered companies to make the election to apply the side-by-side safe harbor, thereby exempting them from Pillar Two's IIR and UTPR.
• Providing specific exemptions from reporting for companies that elect the side-by-side safe harbor.
• Allowing taxpayers to apply the new rules protecting substance-based tax incentives, including the R&D tax credit, from Pillar Two top-up taxes.