Congress Approves Roberts' Efforts to Rein in IRS

Press Release

U.S. Senator Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) today announced that the year-end spending bill includes two provisions he authored to rein in the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The bill passed the House and Senate today and is expected to be signed into law.

"The IRS has proven time and time again that it cannot be trusted," said Roberts. "I'm pleased Congress has finally acted to stop the IRS from making any new rules regarding the treatment of tax exempt organizations, as well as prohibits the IRS from giving out bonuses to employees without considering employee conduct or federal tax compliance. Kansans have been fed up with these scandals and what they view as a clear abuse of power by the Obama Administration."

The spending bill includes two pieces of legislation introduced earlier this year by Senator Roberts, a senior member of the Senate Finance Committee. The first, Stop Targeting of Political Beliefs by the IRS Act, is a bicameral bill with Senator Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), and Congressman Peter Roskam (R-Ill.). This legislation stops further attempts by IRS to exploit bureaucratic loopholes to restrict the free speech rights of the same types of tax-exempt social welfare organizations victimized in the IRS political targeting scandal.

The second piece of legislation included in the bill, is the "Federal Employee Tax Accountability Act" to require federal employees to be current on their federal income taxes, and would prevent federal personnel who are delinquent in paying a federal tax liability from receiving a bonus or cash award. Exceptions are made for tax debt being paid pursuant to an agreement with the IRS and for certain hardships. According to the Inspector General, close to $3 million was awarded to IRS staff with violations on their records, with about half of that amount going to people with tax violations on their record.

Roberts has always been an outspoken critic of the IRS. In August, the Senate Finance Committee released a bipartisan report showing that the Obama Administration used the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to intimidate Americans who disagreed with the administration's policies.

In addition, Roberts recently introduced legislation to stop the IRS' recently proposed voluntary rule that calls on charities to ask for additional personal donor information including Social Security numbers for any donation more than $250.00. Roberts says, "The IRS has already threatened donors in groups that it doesn't like. I don't think we can trust them with a new source of data on donors. There also is no assurance that the agency will stop at this voluntary rule and move to make such reporting mandatory for all contributions and all charities. If implemented, this rule would have a chilling effect on charitable giving."

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