Hoyer: Hearing Highlights Impact of IRS Cuts
Cuts to funding and staff at the Internal Revenue Service harm the nation’s fiscal health and forces the American people to pay the price, says Rep. Steny H. Hoyer.
Rep. Hoyer is the ranking member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government. He and other House colleagues heard testimony from former IRS commissioners and taxpayer advocates as they discussed the consequences that IRS cuts have on law enforcement and America’s fiscal responsibility.
Watch the video of the hearing here.
Former IRS commissioners John Koskinen, Fred Goldberg, Danny Werfel, as well as Natasha Sarin, president of the Yale Budget Lab, and Nina E. Olson, executive director of the Center for Taxpayer Rights, spoke at the hearing.
“For years, the IRS has been desperately underfunded and understaffed, leading hundreds of billions of dollars in legally owed taxes to go uncollected each year,” Ranking Member Hoyer said. “An attack on the IRS is an attack on America’s fiscal health.”
The effort to gut the IRS is nothing short of sabotage, said Ranking Member of the Ways and Means Committee Richard E. Neal (D-MA). “When the IRS works, America works.” He said the cuts mean fewer audits for millionaires, more burdens for honest taxpayers, and billions in lost revenue that could be invested in workers and families.
Former IRS commissioner Koskinen said he spent 20 years in the private sector helping to turn around large, failed enterprises. “And it never occurred to us to starve the accounts receivable operations of any company to see how they did. The goal was to protect revenues, not lose them. I think it is nonsensical to maintain, on the one hand, that you’re concerned about the size of the deficit and, on the other hand, to undermine the agency charged with collecting taxes owed.”
“This is a critical time for the tax agency – and the nation. While the brave men and women of our armed services stand in harm’s way across the globe and members of both parties have concerns about the deficit, there should be no political disagreement that the success of the IRS is vital to the short-term and long-term success of our country, whether it’s serving taxpayers or collecting revenue critical to the health and safety of the United States and our citizens,” former commissioner Werfel said.
Witnesses’ prepared remarks can be found here.
Congressman Hoyer is chair of the Regional Leadership Council.
For more information about Rep. Steny H. Hoyer, visit his Leader member page.
