The House Wednesday passed two bills aimed at reining in the Internal Revenue Service and holding the agency accountable.
The GOP-authored measures that passed mostly along party lines underscored the Republican Party’s disdain for the IRS, which escalated after an internal watchdog discovered it was targeting conservative groups.
The House passed by a vote of 254-170 the No Hires for the Delinquent IRS Act, which blocks the IRS from hiring any new employees until current employees have paid seriously delinquent tax bills or submits a report to Congress explaining why it can’t certify that all agency employees have paid their taxes.
The bill follows a Treasury Inspector General report that found the IRS rehired hundreds of employees who did not follow IRS guidelines when filing their taxes.
Lawmakers also approved legislation sponsored by Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo., that would require the IRS to designate to deposit user fees into a general fund “that will be used for improving taxpayer services.”
User fees have increased 34 percent over the past five years, to $391 million, yet the IRS has cut back on customer services, citing congressional cuts in federal funding. Currently the IRS decides how to spend user fees. The bill would transfer that control to Congress, which oversees all federal spending.
“The IRS has created, in essence, a slush fund,” Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., said, describing the user fees during the debate on Smith’s legislation. “What are they afraid of? Why are they afraid of having some real transparency where we can actually hold the IRS accountable for these user fees?”
Democrats accused the GOP of unfairly trying to punish the IRS, which they say has aleady been strained by a smaller budget and duties that increased drastically with Obamacare, which is enforced through the tax code.
“They seek to limit, impair and hinder a already underfunded agency of doing its job of tax enforcement so everyone contributes to the cost of our national security and vital services,” said Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas.
Republican disdain of the IRS escalated beginning in 2013, when the Treasury Inspector General found the agency was singling out for additional scrutiny conservative and Tea Party groups applying for tax-exempt status.
