Finance Hearing Statement: “The Internal Revenue Service’s Response to Committee Recommendations Contained in its August 5, 2015 Report”

WASHINGTON – Today, Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), a member of the Senate Finance Committee, released the following statement regarding the committee’s hearing on the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) response to the committee’s August report on organizations applying for tax-exempt status. 

“I would like to thank IRS Commissioner Koskinen for being here today. His reaction to the August report released by this committee on the agency’s handling of some organizations applying for tax-exempt status was swift and thorough. While the report clearly dispelled the notion that some of these organizations were handled with a political agenda, it did outline some areas of bureaucratic mismanagement. Commissioner Koskinen has agreed to accept all the recommendations made by this committee to improve this mismanagement, and that is good progress.

“I strongly believe that if something isn’t perfect, we should work hard to make it better, and that’s what we’re doing here today. But it’s important to look at the bigger picture. We must focus not only on the treatment of some organizations, but also on taxpayers as a whole. I think we can agree that taxpayer services at IRS can and should continue to improve. Taxpayers are waiting too long for responses to their calls and too few business returns are being examined.

“It’s clear that Commissioner Koskinen is dedicated to working with Congress to make the agency better, so I look forward to hearing from him today about how we can be a good partner in effecting overall improvement.”