HOUSE GOP BEGINS IMPEACHMENT AGAINST IRS CHIEF

HOUSE GOP BEGINS IMPEACHMENT AGAINST IRS CHIEF 

Accused of misleading public and destroying documents sought under a congressional subpoena

by Stephen Dinan | Washington Times | October 27, 2015

House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz began the impeachment process against IRS Commissioner John Koskinen Tuesday, accusing him of misleading the public and destroying documents that were being sought under a congressional subpoena.

It’s the latest move in the battle over tea party targeting at the tax agency, and comes less than a week after the Justice Department issued a report finding no criminal behavior in the IRS’s decision to subject conservative groups to intrusive scrutiny.

Among the specific charges Mr. Chaffetz and 18 of his fellow Republicans on the committee allege are that Mr. Koskinen misled Congress when he said he’d turned over all of former IRS senior executive Lois G. Lerner’s emails, and oversaw destruction of evidence when his agency destroyed backup tapes that contained the emails.

It was unclear how far the resolution would go in a Congress already preoccupied with so many other fights and with little more than a year to go in 'president' Obama’s tenure.


The IRS has tried a rewrite of those rules that would have prohibited nonprofit groups from conducting voter registration drives or hosting candidate forums. 

Overwhelming public opposition forced Mr. Koskinen to abandon that proposal, but he said Tuesday that he would try again.

“We would hope that we’d be able to provide these proposed new rules early enough next year so that they could — the work on them can be completed well in advance of the election so there wouldn’t be any confusion,” he said. “But I would stress that the work that we’re doing now is focused on clarifying — not changing — but clarifying the rules under which organizations operate.”

Finance Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch, Utah Republican, told Mr. Koskinen that seemed like a waste of time and money when the IRS is already struggling to handle taxpayers’ phone calls during filing season and losing billions of dollars a year to tax fraud.

Mr. Hatch said he would push to impose more restrictions on IRS employees engaging in political activities outside of work. He also said he would try to dent the influence of the labor union representing IRS employees, which the senator suspected of helping feed the tea party targeting.
“Our overall goal here should be to restore the credibility of the IRS and ensure that this very powerful agency treats all American taxpayers fairly,” Mr. Hatch said.
He and other senators were critical of the IRS decision to award bonuses to some of the officials involved in “bad decisions” that led to the targeting.
“The targeting scandal, coupled with poor customer service and general mismanagement, has shaken what confidence taxpayers had in the IRS,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley, Iowa Republican. “To move beyond this, Congress and the IRS are going to have to work together to make the necessary changes to ensure similar abuses can never happen again.”

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/oct/27/house-gop-begins-impeachment-against-irs-chief/