On Tuesday, as part of the Administration’s “tech week”, CompTIA CEO Todd Thibodeaux joined his fellow tech trade association leaders for a “listening session” at the White House on tax reform and government IT modernization. It was an intimate gathering of about 15 people in the Roosevelt Room and followed a well reported and productive meeting the day before with many of the leading global technology firm CEOs.
Treasury Secretary Mnuchin and National Economic Council Director Cohn led the first half of the discussion. They were expansive in their comments, walking participants through their vision for tax reform. As has been widely reported, they intend to bring a package to the House of Representatives in the early fall that they hope will simplify the corporate tax system and return profits to the United States. They were generous with their time, and fielded questions around target rates, achieving a territorial tax system and other top line corporate tax reform matters.
The second half of the meeting was led by Chris Liddell, Assistant to the President and Director of Strategic Initiatives in the White House. Mr. Liddell provided a report on the tech summit meeting from the prior day. He stated the commitment of the Administration to ensure that government IT infrastructure and services are modernized in a way that maximizes commercial services, public-private partnerships and delivers the services that our citizenry deserves.
CompTIA also suggested that modernization of the government IT systems must also include adequate training and certification of the government IT workforce. We also pointed out that many of the most innovative cybersecurity tools and solutions may be coming from smaller firms from around the country and that the Administration look to these innovators as they seek commercial products to harden government systems.
In all this was an extremely productive meeting and CompTIA is grateful to the Administration for its outreach to the tech community.
