Representative Ron Estes

.Dear Friend,

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent appeared before the Ways and Means Committee last Thursday to discuss the Trump administration’s 2027 budget. During the hearing, I discussed how President Trump and Republicans in Congress have worked together to make the U.S. tax code more competitive with the passage of the 2017 Trump Tax Cuts and 2025 Working Families Tax Cuts.

I asked the Secretary for an update on Treasury's work protecting American taxpayers from foreign governments implementing burdensome taxes that target U.S. job creators, known as the Side-by-Side agreement. He assured the committee that they have found a good partnership with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. I've been a fierce advocate for tax sovereignty and protecting taxpayers from other countries attempting to pilfer from the U.S. Treasury.

You can watch my remarks here, or by clicking on the image below.

Sincerely,

Member of Congress

.On Tuesday, the Ways and Means Committee held a legislative hearing on digital asset taxation. Digital assets are digital currencies, including crypto, stablecoins and others. Digital asset taxation directly impacts millions of everyday Americans and our financial institutions, even if folks aren’t directly engaging in the digital asset market. However, digital assets are currently subject to tax definitions meant for the physical world, creating an administrative nightmare.

At the hearing, I talked about how we need to establish a tax code for digital assets that will ease the burden on everyday Americans, brokers and the IRS. You can watch my complete remarks here.

.Executive clemency is a power given to the Kansas Governor that allows them to pardon or commute sentences of those who apply to the Prisoner Review Board. Recently, convicted criminals who committed some of the most atrocious crimes in Kansas history have requested clemency, including the Carr brothers, Justin Thurber and Scott Cheever. Their horrific and cruel murders took place in the 4th District – in Wichita, Cowley County and Greenwood County.

The families of the victims and whole Kansas communities have been impacted by these atrocities, which is why I sent a letter to Governor Kelly urging her to deny these requests. My full letter can be found here.

.On Friday, I introduced a bipartisan resolution in strong opposition to digital services taxes (DSTs). DSTs and other extraterritorial taxes are levied by foreign nations on American companies and workers. They unfairly target Americans and create a hostile environment of double taxation on U.S. small businesses and consumers. These unfair, targeted taxes imposed by other countries are then passed on to U.S. consumers here in Kansas, creating a system in which foreign governments profit from everyday Americans. You can read my resolution here.

.Did you know Kansas’ famously flat topography is actually flatter than a pancake? A research study in 2003 compared Kansas’ geography to an IHOP pancake. Using a laser microscope, the researchers calculated the pancake’s flatness to be approximately 0.957, with 1.0 being perfectly flat. Initially, software returned a perfect value of 1.0 when measuring Kansas’ topography, but deeper, more complex analysis found it to be 0.999. Kansas is the seventh flattest state, with Florida being number one. Despite Kansas’ technical flatness, we still have beautiful landscapes throughout the Sunflower State.