Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act, 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. HUIZENGA of Michigan. Mr. Chairman, my friend from New York was pointing out that, at some point, we are going to move on from the IRS, but I want to point out that this section is specifically about the enforcement of what the IRS has been doing.

Last year, we learned that the IRS has been targeting American taxpayers for their political beliefs for the last 4 or 5 years. During this period, a culture of shading the truth was fostered and developed by directors and administrators throughout the IRS. Now this culture within the IRS has grown to one of stonewalling, doubletalk, and mistrust.

It is up to Congress to use the power of the purse, Mr. Chairman, to rein in the IRS and force them to conduct their analysis in an unbiased manner. This is our constitutional tool. The IRS has proven itself to be unable to do so, which is why I am introducing this amendment that cuts more than $788 million from the IRS' budget. With the combined cuts in the underlying bill of $341 million, this will approximately cut the IRS' budget by 10 percent from its current funding levels. The underlying legislation takes a good step in the right direction, and many of the amendments, including the last one that was just adopted, are a step in the right direction, but I believe, unfortunately, that this doesn't go far enough.

We need to keep in mind that the IRS is one of the most feared agencies within the Federal Government--left, right or center. They can freeze bank accounts, garnish wages, and seize assets with a flick of a pen. Congress needs to utilize the power of the purse--our constitutional tool and responsibility, I might add--to send the IRS a message to put an end to this newfound ``business as usual.''

It is up to Congress to prevent the IRS from ever slipping back into its targeting practices. The best way to do that is to force them to consolidate their resources and prioritize. Congress, itself, has been forced to do this. Our own offices, Mr. Chairman, have been forced to do this over the last number of years, and there is no reason why the IRS cannot follow suit.

We cannot allow the IRS to be used as a political weapon because, as I had pointed out, it doesn't matter if an American's political views are left of the spectrum, right of the spectrum or somewhere in between. The IRS is one of the most powerful agencies that we have, and for them to be injected into this process as a political weapon is simply wrong. Political targeting is not the only example, however, and this is not the real problem I am trying to get at. I believe there is another problem, which is a tax on those who cannot defend themselves. Political targeting is only a part of the story.

The other one is, in 2012, a Taxpayer Advocate Service report found that 69 percent of individuals who claimed the adoption tax credit were audited by the IRS. Okay. That seems like a pretty aggressive move. Unfortunately, for the IRS, only 1.5 percent of the credits claimed were ever disallowed. The Taxpayer Advocate Service and the Government Accountability Office, the GAO, have both noted that the adoption credit claims represented less than one-tenth of 1 percent of all individual returns for the 2011 filing season. By comparison, the IRS spent approximately 3.5 percent of its total staff days on the initial reviews, correspondence, and audits of these adoption tax claims. Let me repeat that. One-tenth of 1 percent are the total claims, yet the IRS spends 3.5 percent of all of its staff days in pursuing these. This is not about tax cheats. This is about harassment. In essence, the IRS spent 35 times the number of work hours investigating adoptive parents compared to other tax filers.

West Michigan, which is the area I represent, is blessed to have one of the highest adoption rates in the entire Nation, hardworking families who want to bring another into their homes, someone who has been abused or neglected. They should not have to be burdened by the echoing footsteps of the taxman.

I am angry, Mr. Chairman. The American people are angry, and they should be. Clearly, the IRS has too much time on its hands and not enough focus. The recklessness with which the IRS is acting by targeting Americans for their political views or as to whether they have adopted a child is simply wrong, and it must be stopped immediately.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

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