Senate Dems plan amendment banning Trump audit immunity deal

Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee plan to introduce an amendment prohibiting President Trump's audit immunity deal with the Internal Revenue Service during a markup of a sprawling bipartisan tax administration bill that is scheduled for Thursday, injecting a partisan provision that is not likely to be approved by Republican lawmakers.

The top Democrat on the committee, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, announced the plans Wednesday, a day after he and Senate Finance Committee chairman Mike Crapo, R-Ohio, announced the upcoming markup hearing of the Taxpayer Service and Administration Act. The wide-ranging bill was originally proposed back in January 2025 in a discussion draft, but had lain dormant until the so-called Chairman's Mark was unveiled Wednesday. The bill includes a large number of far-reaching provisions, including proposals for expanded penalties for tax preparers who improperly alter returns and "ghost preparers" who fail to provide Preparer Tax Identification Number on returns. The bill would also require continuing education of uncredentialed preparers, as well as digitization of tax returns using optical character recognition or a similar technology to transcribe paper returns and correspondence, as well as a real-time dashboard on IRS.gov showing call volumes, wait times and callback availability, along with many other provisions.

(Read more: Senate committee unveils wide-ranging tax administration bill)

The amendment that Wyden and the other Senate Democrats plan to introduce would add a more divisive proposal taking aim at Trump and his family after the IRS initially agreed to a settlement in his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS. The deal would exempt Trump, his family members and businesses from tax audits for previous tax years. It originally would also set up a $1.8 billion fund to compensate victims of so-called government weaponization, potentially including rioters who were arrested and charged with the Jan. 6, 2021 takeover of the U.S. Capitol. The administration later dropped the weaponization fund part of the settlement after a judge ruled against it and a backlash erupted, including among congressional Republicans. However, the tax audit deal apparently remains intact. 

The amendment that Wyden and the other Senate Democrats plan to introduce would ban the IRS from entering into tax audit immunity agreements for a sitting president, their family, or related entities, nullifying the current agreement; extend the statute of limitations so that a future IRS under a new administration could audit Trump and his family; and require the Treasury to report to Congress about any such immunity agreements.

"Trump's sweetheart audit immunity deal is perhaps the most brazenly corrupt action taken by a president in American history, and Congress must permanently put a stop to the unchecked greed on display," Wyden said in a statement Wednesday. "Elected officials cannot look taxpayers in the eye and ask them to play by a set of rules that the president of the United States is exempt from. Tomorrow, senators on the Finance Committee will be able to go on the record about where they stand."