Steven Mnuchin would aim to hire more IRS employees as treasury secretary, he said at his confirmation hearing Thursday.
“This is something that I’m concerned about,” Mnuchin said of IRS staffing, providing an unexpected perspective on a hot-button issue among conservatives.
He said that he was “surprised” to learn that the number of IRS employees has dropped in recent years and suggested that low staffing may be an issue in closing the “tax gap” between what is owed and what is paid.
For years, however, congressional Republicans highly critical of the IRS have sought to slim down the agency and have succeeded in squeezing its budget, and some presidential candidates have sought to do away with it entirely in favor of something else. Republicans have faulted the agency for targeting conservative nonprofits for greater scrutiny and argued that it can fulfill its mission of collecting taxes by redirecting resources.
Mnuchin added that he was also “very concerned about the lack of first-rate technology” at the IRS and that upgrading it would be a priority for him.
His comments came in response to a question from the Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch of Utah, toward the beginning of questioning.
