House uses Tax Day to rein in ‘IRS abuse’

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

House leaders used Wednesday’s tax filing deadline to pass a package of bills designed to protect taxpayers from potential abuse by the IRS, a response to recent scandals at the agency.

One bill would prevent IRS employees from using personal email accounts for official business. One would enact a taxpayers’ bill of rights, and another would require the tax agency to fire employees caught targeting individuals or groups based on their politics.

In all, the House passed eight bills and sent them to the Senate. Seven were passed without recorded votes, with no opposition. The other bill was passed by a vote of 424-0. It would require federal contractors to certify that they don’t have a “seriously delinquent tax debt.”

House Republicans said the bills were part of their efforts to “rein in the IRS.”

“This marks a major step forward in our common quest to strengthen transparency and accountability at the IRS, an agency in desperate need for a complete makeover and cultural change,” said Rep. Peter Roskam, R-Ill., chairman of Ways and Means’ Subcommittee on Oversight.

In 2013, the IRS acknowledged that agents had improperly singled out conservative groups for extra scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status during the 2010 and 2012 elections. An inspector general’s report cited poor management in allowing it to happen, and the Justice Department and several committees in Congress launched investigations.

Much of the agency’s leadership has since been replaced, including the commissioner. None of the investigations has publicly produced evidence that people outside the IRS directed the targeting of conservative groups or knew about it.

IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said the IRS already has addressed many of the issues raised by the bills.

“We’ve put in place all the recommendations of the inspector general to make sure that the mistakes that happened in properly looking at criteria for how to respond to an application shouldn’t have happened, and it shouldn’t happen again,” Koskinen said Wednesday.

“At this point, I think my response is that it’s important for the public to understand that we’ve taken these responsibilities seriously and wherever there were legitimate points raised, we’ve fixed them,” Koskinen said.

House Democrats blocked a bill that would prohibit federal workers from having a “seriously delinquent tax debt.”