Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, wants to know why the Internal Revenue Service is threatening to delay customer service and refunds during tax filing season despite “wasteful and unnecessary spending” on union activity and bonuses.
Hatch, along with other GOP senators on the panel, sent a letter Thursday to Commissioner of Internal Revenue John Koskinen chastising him over warnings that months leading up to April 15 and beyond would be “miserable,” for customers, thanks to IRS budget cuts imposed by Congress.
“These actions, exacerbated by increasingly complicated tax compliance requirements under the Affordable Care Act, threaten to leave taxpayers with the worst tax filing season in recent memory,” Hatch wrote to Koskinen.
Hatch outlined places for the IRS to find savings that would prevent the agency from having to close for two days or reduce customer service, as Koskinen has threatened.
The areas outlined by Hatch include millions of dollars in bonuses paid to IRS employees in recent years as well as more than $23 million spent paying IRS employees to engage in union activities and union travel expenses.
Hatch also targeted “billions of dollars” spent each year by the IRS on information technology systems, which Hatch said comprised nearly 20 percent of the agency budget.
“We will work to give your agency the tools it needs and reform our country’s tax code to make it simpler, fairer, and more competitive,” Hatch wrote “In return, we hope you will work to better streamline your agency and avoid injudicious wastes of taxpayer dollars. We look forward to working with you in this endeavor.”
Koskinen sent IRS employees a memo earlier this month warning that a budget cut of nearly $350 million would “hurt both taxpayers and the tax system.” He told employees the IRS would “have no choice but to do less with less.”
Koskinen, who took over the IRS in December 2013, said the reduced services would include “enforcement cuts” and fewer audits.
