WASHINGTON, DC-The drumbeat to overhaul the nation's tax code has gotten louder and louder this year. At first it was easy to ignore—2013, after all, started out with a midnight hour tax deal to avoid plunging over the fiscal cliff followed by brinkmanship over the sequester. Brinkmanship, which, incidentally, failed to produce a satisfactory compromise.

Yet the push for comprehensive tax reform is invoking surprising shows of bipartisan fervor – fervor that has prompted talk of Republicans sacrificing some of the business community's sacred cows for the greater good of tax reform. For the commercial real estate industry this means a possibility that the tax characterization of carried interest will be changed and, as the Wall Street Journal reported this week, that REITs' tax status will be reviewed.

According to the Journal, House Ways and Means Committee is looking at the REIT tax exemption. "Like all other aspects of the code, it is reasonable to expect that REITs would be included in any top-to-bottom review of the code," the Journal quoted a spokeswoman for the Ways and Means committee, as saying. "The chairman has long made it clear that everything is on the table."

There is a good chance that some of this may come to pass, warns David Johnson, principal of Strategic Vision.

The latest development is the decision by Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, not to run for re-election. Comprehensive tax reform has been a long-held goal of his and now that he is freed from the pressure of re-election, Baucus has said that is what he will focus on.

Baucus "doesn't has to worry about re-election, he doesn't have to worry about adhering to the party line or paying attention to special interests," Johnson tells GlobeSt.com.

In short, he can cut any deal he wants.

The Republicans are also willing to make deals they might otherwise not, Johnson said, and not just in service to the idea of comprehensive tax reform. "They want to appeal to the larger population for the mid-term elections by showing that they are not beholden to special interests or big business. They are trying to position themselves as the defenders of the middle class and giving up some of these business tax breaks would be one way to do that."