Stopping Tax Offenders and Prosecuting Identity Theft Act of 2014

Floor Speech

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

H.R. 744, the Stopping Tax Offenders and Prosecuting Identity Theft Act, has laudable goals of addressing the growing problem of tax return identity theft. Unfortunately, in seeking to address one problem, the bill creates another one.

Last Congress, the Crime Subcommittee held a hearing at which we learned how individuals are victimized by those who file false returns using the names and Social Security numbers of the victims.

When someone has had a false return filed in their name, they often have to engage in an arduous process of setting the record straight with the IRS and obtaining a refund they may be due.

In other instances, perpetrators sometimes benefit by falsely claiming that a deceased child of another is a dependent on their own forms. Parents of the deceased children are then subjected to the additional grief and burden of clearing things up with the IRS.

As a longstanding advocate of personal privacy and personal privacy rights, I am particularly concerned about these schemes which violate the privacy of individuals in addition to imposing financial burdens.

Clearly, we need to do more to combat this type of crime. Accordingly, I support the approach in section 2 of the bill, which encourages the Department of Justice, using task forces, to bring its resources to bear on the problem of tax return identity theft. Increased effort in investigating and prosecuting these crimes is certainly necessary, and Congress should work to provide additional resources to support our agents and prosecutors.

Unfortunately, another provision in the bill raises serious concerns by expanding mandatory minimum sentencing. The bill amends both the basic identity theft statute and the aggravated identity theft statute so that organizations, and not just individuals, may be covered as victims.

Expanding the scope of victims under the aggravated identity theft statute, thus, also expands the scope of mandatory penalties under the statute, section 1028A of title 18. The penalty for aggravated identity theft is a mandatory term of imprisonment of 2 years or, for an offense related to terrorism, 5 years. While I oppose this expansion of the mandatory minimum sentences, I do not oppose the imposition of appropriate sentences for this offense as warranted under the circumstances of each case.

With respect to the proposed expansion of the coverage of the aggravated identity theft statute to organizations, Congressman Bobby Scott, ranking member of the Crime Subcommittee, offered an amendment at markup to narrowly prevent application of mandatory sentences to the expansion, but instead allow for even higher sentences for those offenses, but at the judges' discretion. As a result, judges would have the flexibility to impose even greater sentences, when warranted, but they would not be required to impose mandatory minimums. Unfortunately, the amendment was not adopted, leaving H.R. 744 with a serious flaw that violates sound sentencing policy.

Mandatory minimums have been studied extensively and have been found to distort rational sentencing systems to discriminate against minorities, to waste the taxpayers' money, and to often violate common sense. Even if everyone involved in a case--from arresting officer, prosecutor, judge, and victim--believes that the mandatory minimum would be an unjust sentence for a particular defendant in a case, it still must be imposed.

Mandatory minimum sentences, sometimes based merely on the name of the crime, unwisely remove sentencing discretion from the judge. Regardless of the role of the offender in the particular crime, the offender's record or lack thereof, or the facts and circumstances of the case, the judge has no choice but to impose the mandatory minimum set by legislators long before the crime has been committed. Such a policy is unjust and unwarranted. The expansion of mandatory minimum sentencing in this bill is, therefore, problematic.

For these reasons, I cannot support this well-intentioned but flawed bill.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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