Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Danny Werfel said Thursday that the IRS was paying close attention to the legislation and would be able to process the expanded credits and deductions within a matter of weeks.
Werfel added the IRS could potentially do so within the current filing season, which opened at the end of January.
“We may be able to start implementation as early as six to 12 weeks after passage,” he said while testifying before lawmakers, adding that the agency could act “closer to the six-week end of that range.”
Democrats have been vocal in their support of the expanded CTC, which some want to see administered in the form of monthly checks as opposed to being given in a lump sum.
“Making payments monthly instead of annual has the power to change the lives of working people all over the country,” Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.) said Thursday.
Republicans in the Senate have said the CTC expansion should come with increased work requirements
for recipients.
A Democratic aide to the Senate Finance Committee told The Hill on Wednesday that no decisions have been made about a Senate markup for the bill and that chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) is still in talks with majority leader Chuck Schumer
(D-N.Y.) about the bill’s future.
Republicans also fumed Thursday about the direct file pilot program, a new IRS service currently in a testing phase that offers a public alternative to commercial tax prep software.
The Hill’s Tobias Burns has more here.
