In the 10 days following President-elect Donald Trump’s win, Capitol Hill moves and nominee discussions have shed new light on the potential top players in next year’s negotiations over expiring provisions from the 2017 GOP tax law.

On the Hill, the GOP clinched control of the House, and House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) appears likely to retain the committee’s gavel. Vice Chair Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.) said he won’t challenge Smith because “I’ve got my plate full.” Read more from Chris Cioffi.

In the Senate, Republican John Thune of South Dakota won the majority leader spot. Thune was part of a group of committee Republicans in the current Congress who helped block the $78 billion bipartisan tax deal that Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) negotiated with Smith in the House.

Thune also played an active part in 2017 when the GOP-led Congress overhauled the tax code during the first Trump administration in the bill known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Catch up on Thune and his win.

Now, GOP lawmakers are vying for scarce Senate Finance and House Ways and Means Committee seats. As many as 10 House Republicans have considered a bid for Ways and Means, including Reps. Rudy Yakym of Indiana, Max Miller of Ohio, and Nathaniel Moran of Texas, who said they’re still interested. Cioffi and Zach C. Cohen have more.

And Trump is still weighing who will be his Treasury secretary, meeting with Key Square Group founder Scott Bessent on Friday. Also under consideration are Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick and Robert Lighthizer, Trump’s first-term trade adviser, according to people familiar with the matter. Read more.

Meanwhile, news emerged this week that Trump’s transition team plans to end the electric vehicle purchase credit and has Tesla’s support.

Craig Trudell writes that the company is being forced to contort itself to stay aligned with CEO Elon Musk, whose political lurch to the right has only exacerbated an extreme self-consciousness about a hard truth: Musk’s most valuable company wouldn’t have survived its tumultuous early years without government support. Read more.

The IRS is more than halfway toward its goal of hiring 600 agents in both the global high-wealth and pass-through entities units, according to Clifford Scherwinski, director of pass-through entities.

Speaking this week at a panel at the AICPA & CIMA National Tax Conference in Washington, D.C., he said the agency has hired mid-career employees from accounting firms and moved workers within the IRS. The hiring spree was funded by the Democrats’ 2022 tax-and-climate law. Erin Schilling has more.

Speaking at the same conference, LuCinda Comegys, director of accounts management in the IRS taxpayer services division, said the agency is making it easier for parents who live apart but share custody of a child to file for a child tax benefit.

Starting next filing season, both parents can file their returns electronically to claim a child tax benefit as long as the parent who files second includes an identity protection pin number on their return. Schilling has the story.

Other top officials spoke this week at a Practising Law Institute tax conference in Chicago. Theron West, attorney adviser in Treasury’s Office of Tax Policy, said at that event the Treasury Department is taking a closer look at providing guidance on how liabilities are assumed and allocated during spinoff transactions.

West said the agency is considering the implication of what is a liability and what is debt within the deal-making landscape for tax purposes, including addressing scenarios in which there is an economic impact versus a legal impact. Rebecca Chen covered the conference.

More conference coverage:

• Industry Asks Treasury for CAMT Exceptions for Bankruptcy Status
• IRS Preps Legal Memos on Pass-Throughs, Transfer Pricing Rules

The IRS is winning more cases in the US Tax Court over companies’ valuation of intangible assets, such as patents and trademarks, through transfer pricing.

In this week’s Talking Tax podcast, Bloomberg Tax reporter Caleb Harshberger spoke with Grant Thornton Transfer Pricing Technical Leader Steve Wrappe and Greenberg Traurig shareholder Sharon Katz-Pearlman about how the IRS has changed its approach and what additional funding from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act means for taxpayers moving forward.

Listen here and subscribe to Talking Tax on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Megaphone, or Audible.

Illinois: The state is seeing a surge of litigation challenging the constitutionality of its complex sales tax law for remote retailers, with several cases in front of the state tax court. Read more.

South Carolina: The South Carolina Supreme Court should hold that Amazon isn’t liable for about $12.5 million in sales tax because a statute doesn’t apply to previous years, the company said. Read more.

For a wrap-up of this week’s state news, read more here.

Planning for CAMT: Forvis Mazars’ Scott Austin, Michael Cornett, and Howard Wagner say partnerships should keep extra records to prepare for a potential corporate alternative minimum tax, noting that they’ll need to spend more time and money to ensure compliance.

California Sales Tax: San José State University professor Annette Nellen examines California’s city sales tax system, saying tax laws from the 1930s no longer reflect modern consumption habits.

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This is the weekend edition of tax and accounting news from Bloomberg Tax. We highlight the biggest stories of the last week so that you’re caught up on what matters most. Have feedback on this newsletter or something you read here? Drop us an email.