OFFICIALS LEGISLATION INTEREST GROUPS PUBLIC STATEMENTS COMMITTEES VETOES

Ensuring Integrity in the Irs Workforce Act of 2015

Floor Speech

Date: April 21, 2016
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Taxes Government Operations

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Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I really want to thank the gentlewoman from South Dakota for her leadership in bringing this bill forward.

Mr. Speaker, this bill is about restoring trust. This bill is about holding the IRS accountable. Here we are, in a week where Americans had to file their tax returns. And so often, just the letters I-R-S send a chilling effect through people when they hear those letters. Yet, you look at the arrogance over at the IRS, just the attitude that they have and the disdain it seems that they have towards the very people who pay their bills--the taxpayers.

Here you have a case where people who have been fired by the IRS for abusing their positions are actually being rehired back to the IRS. Again, this is the kind of disdain that disgusts people as they fear the IRS. The IRS ought to have the same fear towards the people who pay their salaries as people get when they get that letter from the IRS.

Mr. Speaker, we have had inspector general reports in the Treasury Department. The inspector general found over 140 IRS agents aren't even accurate in their taxes. The very people who are responsible for auditing American citizens aren't even paying their own taxes.

This is the kind of disregard for the American people that we are seeing over at the IRS, and it is time to rein it in. It is time to bring some accountability and transparency back to the IRS.

Who is afraid of that? What is so wrong with saying: If somebody has been fired for cause over at the IRS, with the access they have to such sensitive personal information of taxpayers, why should they be rehired back?

It is just basic common sense that if somebody has abused their position at the IRS, enough is enough, and they shouldn't be able to return and have access to that sensitive information anymore.

I want to applaud, again, the gentlewoman from South Dakota for bringing this commonsense bill forward. I would urge adoption later on when we have this vote on the House floor.

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