Legislation introduced in the Senate Thursday would make it significantly harder for the Internal Revenue Service to unfairly target conservative nonprofit groups for auditing.
The Biased IRS Audit Systems Prevention Act, introduced by Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., would force the IRS to start providing documented justification to those selected for auditing. “When taxpayers are audited by the IRS, they deserve to know why,” Burr said, citing recent inspector general reports that found the agency may still be targeting conservative groups.
The legislation also would end “research audits,” conducted by the IRS for the purpose of data collection. “It is not the job of taxpayers to serve as guinea pigs for IRS bureaucrats,” Burr said. “The IRS should not be conducting tens of thousands of guinea pig audits while simultaneously claiming that they don’t have the budget to combat tax-related identity theft.”
IRS Commissioner John Koskinen told a panel of the House Appropriations Committee this month that the agency’s cybersecurity and customer service were being degraded due to a lack of funding, even though the agency’s budget has consistently increased over the years.
A successful cyberattack on the IRS last year resulted in the loss of data on 330,000 taxpayers from the agency’s “Get Transcript” database, while another attack earlier this month resulted in the loss of special identification numbers associated with 101,000 taxpayers.
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Burr said his legislation would help the agency to allocate resources more efficiently in addition to encouraging “much-needed transparency.”
