Date: 1997-11-05
Speaker: NANCY JOHNSON (republican)
Chamber: H

who did a tremendous job on taxpayer rights. electronic filing and other committee issues. the full Committee on Ways and Means staff. many of whom are here today. the Joint Tax Committee staff. Ken Kies and others. the Government Reform and Oversight Committee had jurisdiction over this. and they helped us on this. Regarding the Committee on Appropriations. the gentleman from Maryland. Mr. STENY HOYER. talked earlier about the appropriators. The gentleman from Arizona. Mr. JIM KOLBE. and the gentleman from Maryland. Mr. STENY HOYER. had a lot of input into this process. as did their staffs. and finally. the Committee on the Budget and the Committee on Rules. Both of those committees also had jurisdiction over parts of this comprehensive legislation. Also. I give thanks to the many outside groups who spent a lot of time working on this legislation and gave us valuable input. Then. when we had a good package together. they went out and sold it to their members. the people at the grass roots. The National Taxpayers Union. Americans for Tax Reform. the NFIB. the Chamber. Citizens Against Government Waste. and yes. the tax preparer community again gave us valuable input and helped us to put that together. They work closely with the taxpayers and the IRS every day. They know this will help. That is why they are supporting it. Special thanks to people who were there from the beginning. to each member of the National Commission on Restructuring the IRS. including my cochair. of course. Senator BOB KERREY of Nebraska. but also our colleague Senator CHucK GRASSLEY of Iowa. and the gentleman from Pennsylvania. Mr. BILL COYNE. the Commission staff. and finally. to my own personal staff. who have gone well beyond the call of duty. The Commission conducted a yearlong audit of the IRS and made specific legislative recommendations for change. It was successful. I think. for two reasons. First. we kept politics out of it. In fact. we brought expertise in. The people who were represented on the Commission brought the kind of expertise to bear that we needed to solve the real problems at the IRS. Commission members not only included a former IRS Commissioner. the heads of the New York and California State tax systems. but also a small businessman. a representative of the people who work at the IRS. technology experts. taxpayer advocates. And the Commission did its homework. We conducted 15 days of hearings in and out of Washington. interviewed all the senior level IRS managers. and for the first time ever actually conducted interviews with 300 online IRS employees to find out from them what the problems were. Finally. we listened carefully to the concerns and stories of the taxpayers who foot the bill. After our yearlong audit. we ended up with more than 50 specific reform recommendations for the most comprehensive overhaul of the agency since 1952. The IRS Restructuring and Reform Act before us today takes these recommendations and I think. improves on them. Others have given a good overview of the bill. Let me just touch on a view of the points. First. while this effort focuses on making the tax collection system work much better. not the Internal Revenue Code itself. the commission found. as many of my colleagues have discussed today. that we also need to simplify our Tax Code. We take the first step in doing that in this legislation. We do so by putting in place new legislative incentives for tax simplification as compared to every other incentive around here which is for more complexity. We also force the IRS to be at the table to tell us what a greatsounding new tax legislative proposal is going to result in. in terms of new tax schedules. time for the taxpayer to fill them out. and work for the IRS. The bill also targets Congress by consolidating and streamlining congressional oversight. There are now seven committees that give the IRS advice. We streamline it. and we force these committees to come together and to send a clear and consistent and single message to the Internal Revenue Service from Capitol Hill. The overall thrust of this bill is to make service to the taxpayer. not heavy handed enforcement. but service to the taxpayer the top priority of the IRS. It does so in a number of ways. Importantly. it dramatically increases IRS accountability for getting the job done by establishing a more effective IRS oversight body. You have heard other Members talk about the oversight board today. The important thing is that it brings expertise to the IRS that is absolutely needed and is not there now. Second. it provides continuity. stability of leadership. so that over time we actually have changes that are going to work for the taxpayers so we are not up here 3 or 4 or 5 years from now discussing the same problems. With this input from nongovernmental experts to hold the IRS responsible for answering the phones. getting the computers to work. ensuring that IRS employees are trained. and. yes. treating taxpayers more courteously. with more respect. we will have a new IRS. Much of the media attention has focused on the oversight board. what is often overlooked. is that we actually give the IRS commissioner more power. more tools to be able to manage the agency. to get the job done daytoday. We give the commissioner a 5year term so the commissioners responsibilities go beyond any single administration. We also give the commissioner the ability to bring in his or her own team of senior managers. Charles Rossotti was just confirmed by the Senate this week. I think he will be a good IRS commissioner. He brings management experience and information technology experience that is badly needed. We need to give him these tools because without them. frankly. he is going to have a very difficult job doing what he wants to do. which is to turn the IRS around and make it a taxpayer service organization. Taxpayer rights. If Members saw the Senate Committee on Finance hearings. they know that we do need new rights in legislation for taxpayers. The bill provides us 28 specific new taxpayer rights. like allowing taxpayers to recover damages when the IRS does something wrongful. like the burden of proof shift we have heard about from the gentleman from Ohio and others. like protecting innocent spouses from IRS harassment. All of these are extremely important. They compliment the other provisions of the bill. Very importantly. this legislation also creates a new system within the IRS to evaluate employees. Again. it has been overlooked by many. but this is one of the most fundamental changes in terms of changing the culture at the IRS. The new system would evaluate employees and managers not on the amount of money. taxes. they collect. but on the degree to which they are providing good service to the taxpayer. It also puts in place unprecedented personnel flexibility to allow IRS managers to promote folks who are doing a good job within the agency and. yes. to fire the bad apples at the agency. This is called reinventing government. We are not just talking about it today. we are actually passing legislation to do so. Again. along with the other reforms. this is what is going to change the culture at the IRS. There are many other key provisions in this legislation: Establishing new financial accountability to force the IRS to balance its own books. knocking down barriers to electronic filing. which is a winwin for the taxpayer and the IRS. and. -finally. making the taxpayer advocate truly independent so that that taxpayer advocate is indeed an independent advocate for the taxpayer. Taken as a whole. these legislative changes. this whole package. will create a new IRS that treats the taxpayer with respect. gives the taxpayer the service they deserve. We have to remember. this troubled agency touches more Americans than any other Federal entity. Today. all of us as taxpayers are the real winners. Mr. Speaker. I reserve the balance of my time.