Hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee - Opening Statement of Sen. Mikulski, Hearing on the Department of the Treasury and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Budget Requests for Fiscal Year (FY) 2017

Hearing

"Mr. Commissioner, I want to thank you for what you do and I also want to thank the thousands of people who work for the IRS. I'm very proud of the fact that IRS is headquartered in Maryland. And when I move around, this is what they say to me: "Barb, help us do our job.' "Barb, we want to be able to collect the taxes.' "Barb, we want to answer those phones. What can you do to get us the money?'

"They're telling me to tell Congress to do our job so that they can do their job. I hear it as I move around, and I'm just impressed by their dedication. Because that's what we have to do: collect the taxes that are owed - $385 billion dollars. That's outrageous that that's uncollected. And it's uncollected because some people avoid and some people don't know. And then it's to help the taxpayer, so many with over 150 million returns being filed, 10 million letters, five million visits to walk sites and 100 million phone calls to IRS. And then there's the schemers and the scammers.

"People over a certain age, put me in that category, are now the victims of these targeted scams. I myself was most recently targeted. I got this phone call saying, "You are being sued by IRS. All you need to do is give us your Social Security number to validate who you are. By the way give us your credit card number, the pin number and your bank account number so that you can do the electronic transfer.' Well it's not that Barb Mikulski was targeted, it's all the other people over the age of 65 that are being targeted.

"I am outraged that hardworking people who want to comply are now being terrified. My question to you, Mr. Commissioner -- I mean I took action, turned to proper law enforcement, to the Attorney General, the State of Maryland, all of those things. What would you advise the taxpayers that if they get this kind of scheme, scum effort, to actually defraud them, what would you recommend? What action should they take?

"Because while we're working on big budget we've got to remember the little people. So what tips and news could you give today on how to help them?"

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