The Senate Finance Committee is planning a hearing next Tuesday, June 2, to examine how criminals were able to steal the data of 100,000 taxpayers directly from the IRS’ website.
Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said the hearing is needed to examine the failure of the government to protect personal information.
“Taxpayers deserve to know what happened at the IRS regarding the data theft, and this hearing will be the first step of many that the committee takes to determine what happened and how the government can prevent such attacks from happening again,” Hatch said Wednesday.
“At the hearing, members will have the opportunity to hear from and question the IRS commissioner and the inspector general, and I am hopeful we can gain a better understanding of how this theft occurred and who is behind it,” he said.
IRS Commissioner John Koskinen will appear at the hearing, as will J. Russell George, Treasury’s inspector general for tax administration.
The data theft has outraged Republicans, who saw the news as just the latest example of a major failure at the tax collection agency. House Speaker John Boehner said the breach is “another reason to doubt an IRS that has yet to stamp out the culture of arrogance that led to outrageous waste and taxpayer abuse.”
On the House side, the Ways & Means Committee is expected to examine what happened.
Hatch’s committee hearing was announced shortly after officials told the Associated Press that they believe the thieves who accessed the IRS accounts were based in Russia.
The IRS has said its own computer system is secure, and that the thieves gained access to Social Security numbers and other information in order to sign onto the IRS site.
