Date: 2014-02-25
Speaker: DANNY K. DAVIS (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Illinois

Mr. Speaker. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Coming from the same and neighboring communities and State as my colleague. we agree on many things. We all agree that the Internal Revenue Service should not ask about your religious. political. or social beliefs in determining your taxpayer status. That is different. however. from asking you about your political activities. which was at the root of the Internal Revenue Services mismanagement of the 501(c)(4) applications. The IRS did the right thing in trying to group together applications by activity. but they were wrong in using party names and labels from both Democrats and Republicans in their organizational process. The division that was the subject of the May 2013 TIGTA report was grossly mismanaged in that it allowed these applications to be selected by name and then allowed them to sit for an inordinate length of time. Swift corrective action was taken to remove the ineffective management. and the subsequent IRS leadership has put the agency on the right path to restoring the public trust. There has never been any evidence of political motivation or influence from anyone either inside or outside the IRS. Treasurys inspector general repeatedly testified that he found no evidence of political motivation in the selection of processing of tax exemption applications that were the subject of his report. Indeed. an extensive review of 5.500 employee emails by the TIGTA Office of Investigations concluded that there was no political motivation in trying to group these applications. At the end of the day. Mr. Speaker. what we saw was a small division of a very large agency that struggled to determine how to handle taxexempt applications from politically motivated groups. Consequently. they allowed those applications to sit for an inordinate amount of time while it tried to determine what criteria to use to judge who determined taxexempt status. We also had a flawed TIGTA report that deliberately removed any reference to Progressive and Democratic groups from the criteria the IRS actually used to group applications together and consequently presented a onesided and partisan conclusion about this issue to Congress. What we do not have is any evidence of political motivation in the processing of tax exemption applications or any evidence of outside influence in the selection or processing of tax exemption applications. Mr. Speaker. I think enough is enough. It is time for us to move on to processing issues like extending longterm unemployment insurance benefits. raising the minimum wage. and fixing our immigration laws. Let us give the American people some confidence that their Congress can debate and pass bills on these important issues. Yes. there was activity that took place which is unacceptable. The individuals have been removed from those positions. Let us take the Internal Revenue Service and move it on to higher heights. giving the American people that each and every citizen is treated fairly. with respect. and with the dignity that all of us deserve as citizens of this great Nation. I reserve the balance of my time.