Republican Rep. Claudia Tenney of New York ripped the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) following an inspector general report that the tax agency lost millions of data belonging to taxpayers.
The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) said the IRS was unable to account for personal data of millions of taxpayers stored on microfilm in a report released Aug. 8. The report said that microfilm backups stored in Ogden, Utah, were not “adequately safeguarded.” (RELATED: ‘They’re Struggling To Recruit People’: Former FBI Agent Speaks Out On Resurfaced IRS Recruitment Videos)
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“It is unconscionable that the IRS, which has sensitive information, is too busy to get involved with the everyday taxpayer, which, by the way, members of Congress, that’s one of our duties,” Tenney told “Kudlow” guest host Brian Brenberg after he asked her about agency reportedly saying in its response to the TIGTA report that the safekeeping of records was not a top priority. “We do a lot of work on IRS, they are behind on a lot of things and they want 87,000 new enforcement agents, to go after innocent, in most cases, people, who can’t afford to fight it.”
The Inflation Reduction Act, which President Joe Biden signed into law in August 2022, included $80 billion for the IRS to hire up to 87,000 news agents.
“Interesting that they want that, but meanwhile, we had two IRS whistle-blowers come forward exposing Hunter Biden and they are slow-walking that while we allow the statute of limitations to expire and they’re part of that,” Tenney continued. “We couldn’t get the information out from the IRS… The IRS is a disaster just like our other federal agencies.”
The IRS received criticism after ProPublica received and published tax information on some of the wealthiest Americans in 2021, and a similar leak involving conservative organizations occurred in 2013. The agency also came under fire for allegedly targeting the Tea Party during the Obama administration. Lois Lerner, a central figure in the scandal, faced no criminal charges as a result of the scandal.
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