Politics

Four Bills Demanding More Accountability From The IRS Pass Committee

Daily Caller News Foundation logo
Juliegrace Brufke Capitol Hill Reporter
Font Size:

GOP lawmakers on the House Ways and Means Committee advanced four bills designed to deal with the Internal Revenue Services’ major incompetencies during a markup Wednesday, just ahead of tax day.

“Americans send a significant portion of their hard-earned dollars to the IRS every April. They deserve an IRS that is committed to delivering the highest level of customer service to American taxpayers,” Committee Chairman [crscore]Kevin Brady[/crscore] said in his opening remarks. “That’s what each of our bills is about today – making the IRS accountable to the American people. Americans send a significant portion of their hard-earned dollars to the IRS every April.”

The first bill, introduced by Rep. [crscore]Kristi Noem[/crscore] of South Dakota, is aimed at stopping the IRS from rehiring an employee that was laid off for misconduct. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration found this to be a major problem as many agency employees who were fired had failed to pay their own taxes, filed false documents and accessed sensitive information without permission.

“If the IRS currently thinks its current practices are protecting taxpayers then they need a reality check,” Noem said, adding the agency refuses to fix the problem on its own. “And the Ensuring Integrity in the IRS Workforce Act is a simple bipartisan fix to a serious problem.”

Ranking Member [crscore]Sander Levin[/crscore] said while he objected to the other three bills being considered, he had no problem with the South Dakota Republican’s legislation.

Rep. Patrick Meehan’s bill was designed to ensure IRS employees don’t receive bonuses until the agency has “developed and implemented a comprehensive customer service strategy.”

One of the biggest complaints about the agency has been its lack of efficiency when it comes to addressing taxpayer questions.

“It doesn’t say you never need to pay out a bonus, it simply says do your job first and identify who comes first,” Meehan said. “We are asking to fill what has been asked by the GAO and more specifically by the taxpayers.”

New Jersey Democrat Rep. Bill Pascrell blasted the bill, saying they are not fully funding the agency for it to operate properly – a claim Meehan shut down.

“I’m going to make a factual point,” Meehan said. “The IRS received the same appropriations for taxpayer services accounts in 2015 as it had in 2014, however, because it didn’t get any extra money for the Affordable Care Act it repurposed $133 million from its own internals for the Affordable Care Act instead of doing taxpayer services.”

The third bill, sponsored by Rep. [crscore]Jason Smith[/crscore] of Missouri, would give Congress the power to determine how the IRS spends user fees.

“They (IRS) have not proven to this committee, they have not proven to the Missourians I represent and they have not proven to the American people that they are responsible stewards of user fees,” Smith said. “Their user fees collect almost $500 million it’s nothing but a slush fund. That’s why we filed the IRS OWES Act, it provides Congress and the American people better oversight on how the IRS is spending valuable taxpayer resources.”

The fourth and final bill marked up Wednesday – introduced by Rep. [crscore]David Rouzer[/crscore] of North Carolina, who doesn’t sit on the panel – which passed out of committee along party lines would force the agency to “certify that no IRS employees have serious delinquencies with respect to their own tax obligations.”

Democratic Rep. [crscore]Jim McDermott[/crscore] of Washington accused the bills of being designed to make the agency fail.

“It’s all because you’re mad over what happened around the allegations that they were picking on right-wing PACs,” he said. “Starving the IRS by taking away 3.5 percent in one bill and taking away the ability to rehire people in another bill – everything in here is designed to destroy the IRS. It’s bad legislation and you ought to vote no.”

Republican Rep. [crscore]Mike Kelly[/crscore] of Pennsylvania emphasized it is Congress’ duty to protect the taxpayer.

Follow Juliegrace Brufke on Twitter

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel