New and Improved JCT Website, Pt. 1

The new Joint Committee on Taxation website [1], new as of this week, is mostly a look-and-feel improvement. Little of the material is new here, but you no longer feel as though you're entering a 19th century crypt when you log into it.

There's also a document, posted today, "Inside the JCT Revenue Estimating Process [2]," by Edward Kleinbard, the JCT Chief of Staff, which we'll give a closer look later. Suffice it to say that it begins to demystify the Committee's methodology, but it's unfortunately rendered in bullet points.

How the JCT choses which legislation to provide estimates for and the timeframe involved in the decision and execution are outlined, but not explained, in a flow chart. This process is opaque even to members of the Senate. These questions basically go unanswered, so the discreet delphic charm of the JCT remains fundamentally entact.

The FAQ [3] section is written in prose, rather than bullet points, but it's short, addressing only four questions.

Even though there's lots of overlap in the site, there are a few very helpful sections, notably:

• Joint Committee Role in the Tax Legislative Process [4]
• Joint Committee Revenue Estimation Process [5]

In case anyone wonders, as the graph below shows, JCT is a growth business:

[6]
(click on image to enlarge)