THE DAILY WHIP: WEDNESDAY, APRIL 20, 2016

Complete consideration of H.R. 4885 – IRS Oversight While Eliminating Spending (OWES) Act of 2016 (Rep. Smith (MO) – Ways and Means) (One hour of debate).  This bill would eliminate the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) current authority to direct user fees that it collects, totaling between $400 and $500 million each year, to fulfill the agency’s mandates, including assisting taxpayers, implementing the Affordable Care Act, and addressing corporate tax inversions.  H.R. 4885 would require any user fees collected be deposited into the general fund of the Treasury, effectively cutting the IRS’s annual operating budget by 5%.

H.R. 4885 would continue the Republican majority’s trend of limiting the IRS’s ability to separate tax abuses from the tens of millions of legitimate filers each year.  The IRS budget has been cut by about 17% since 2010, resulting in a 23% reduction in enforcement personnel, training lags, and delayed upgrades to technology systems.  The results of such cuts are predictable: weakened tax enforcement in the face of increasingly complicated identity theft and tax abuse schemes, and weakened taxpayer services while the population of taxpayers in the United States grows.

The National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) is opposed to H.R. 4885, saying “NTEU strongly opposes eliminating IRS’ ability to use the user fees that it collects, as provided by law… While proponents of this legislation claim the bill is simply an attempt to ensure proper congressional oversight of the IRS, in reality these measures are designed to undermine and weaken the IRS’s ability to enforce enacted laws… [I]t is imperative that the IRS be provided with the resources necessary to carry out its responsibilities under the law, and to retain the flexibility to allocate user fee revenues as necessary to do so.”

H.R. 4885 was unanimously opposed by Democrats on the Ways and Means Committee. In the Statement of Administration Policy, the President's senior advisors stated that they would recommend he veto this bill.  Members are urged to VOTE NO.

Complete consideration of H.R. 1206 – No Hires for the Delinquent IRS Act (Rep. Rouzer – Ways and Means) (One hour of debate).  This bill would prohibit the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) from hiring any new employees until the Treasury Secretary certifies that not a single employee of the IRS has a serious tax delinquency, meaning the IRS has filed a lien, or submits a report to Congress explaining why it cannot make that certification.

This bill is another Republican solution in search of a problem. Currently IRS employees have an overall tax compliance rate of over 99%, higher than the general public, highest among federal agencies, and higher than the House of Representatives.  Additionally, Section 1203 of the Internal Revenue Service Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998 already provides for termination of IRS employees if there is a willful failure to file a federal tax return or willful understatement of federal tax liability barring a reasonable cause. 

Since 2010, budget cuts have forced the IRS to reduce its workforce by more than 15,000 employees.  The IRS has struggled to deliver effective taxpayer services while operating under hiring freezes and funding cuts.  H.R. 1206 is another political ploy to further tie the hands of the IRS. Members are urged to VOTE NO.

The Rule, which was adopted yesterday, makes in order 1 amendment, debatable for 10 minutes, equally divided between the offeror and an opponent.  The amendment is:

Grayson Amendment. Adds a level of confidentiality by limiting the information furnished under this act to only be used for the purposes of this act and further provides that the information produced wouldn't be published in any form in which any particular individual can be identified nor can this information be made available to anyone outside of Internal Revenue Service.

TOMORROW’S OUTLOOK
The GOP Leadership has announced the following schedule for Thursday, April 21: The House will meet at 9:00 a.m. for legislative business. The House is expected to complete consideration of H.R. 3724 – Ensuring Integrity in the IRS Workforce Act of 2015 (Rep. Noem – Ways and Means).  The House is also expected to complete consideration of H.R. 4890 – To impose a ban on the payment of bonuses to employees of the Internal Revenue Service until the Secretary of the Treasury develops and implements a comprehensive customer service strategy (Rep. Meehan – Ways and Means).