Baucus names key tax aide

{mosads}That reform effort could focus on the issue of a possible international tax holiday for multinationals in the interest of encouraging the repatriation of profits. Ron Dabrowski is the counsel in charge of all international tax matters for Senate Finance. 

VanderWolk joined Ernst & Young on Monday as an executive director. He reports to Michael Mundaca, who served as assistant Treasury secretary for tax policy until 2011.

Prior to his Senate work, VanderWolk was a law professor in Hong Kong and worked at Merill Lynch. In 2005 and 2006, he worked at the Internal Revenue Service on international tax matters. 

It remains unclear whether tax reform can be accomplished during the session of Congress. Senate Finance and House Ways and Means are working on plans that would eliminate tax breaks and lower rates, but so far, they do not agree on whether the reform would raise new revenue for the government to reduce the deficit.

To expedite matters, the House could try to tie a tax reform deadline to a bill to raise the nation’s debt ceiling this fall. 

Under Senate ethics rules, VanderWolk will be barred from lobbying Baucus or the Finance Committee for one year.

— This story was updated at 2:03 p.m.