In an effort to curtail the blatant abuses by the Internal Revenue Service and the administration’s lack of oversight of it, this week the House voted on several bills that were aimed to put taxpayers’ minds at ease about attempts by the agency to infringe on their freedoms. 

Passing this important series of bills that would stop government abuse, particularly with regard to the IRS, could not have come at a better time. With Tax Day less than two months away, many Americans, including myself, have been gathering the personal financial records we’ll need to file our state and federal income tax returns.

It has almost been one year since the news broke the IRS had been targeting conservative groups. Since that time, the Oversight and Government Reform Committee and Ways and Means Committee have held numerous hearings about this scandal and despite evidence to the contrary, the administration maintains that no wrongdoing took place. During this period of time I have forwarded to the committee over 3,000 pages of documents showing they also were not enforcing the law against liberal organizations operating in our state. This has also been part of their investigation.

More recently, I have also heard from several concerned constituents who believe the IRS inappropriately scrutinized local Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) posts in Missouri. Rest assured that my office immediately contacted both the Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the Ways and Means Committee to relay this information. Abuse by the IRS is simply inexcusable, unacceptable, and must stop.

I was proud to support the Stop Targeting of Political Beliefs by the IRS Act of 2014 which would prohibit the Treasury and IRS from issuing or finalizing proposed 501(c) (4) tax-exempt organization rule changes to allow time for the IRS targeting investigation to be completed. Along the same lines, I recently signed on to a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder demanding he appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the IRS targeting scandal. This prosecutor would prosecute any and all criminal conduct and report to Congress and the American people what occurred, why it occurred, who knew about it, and what can be done to ensure it will not happen again.

The House also passed with my support the Taxpayers Right-to-Know Act which would require each federal agency to produce an annual report that identifies every program with a description of the program and its costs, expenditures for services, beneficiaries of services and number of staff. The information would then be posted online with recommendations from each agency to improve efficiency.

Finally, I supported a House-passed bill called the Taxpayer Transparency and Efficient Audit Act which would require the IRS to disclose to the taxpayer when the IRS has shared their tax information with another government agency and places a time limit on how long an individual can be subjected to an IRS audit.

It has become very clear this administration is prepared to use the broad powers of the IRS to intrude on the lives of hard-working Americans. Combine that with the use of the IRS to help enforce the president’s failing health-care law and it is clear that my job as a member of Congress is to not only prevent abuses by the government’s tax collector but also to stem the tide of the agency’s authority. I believe that with the passage of these bills we have made significant steps in that direction.  

CONTACT US: As always, for those of you with Internet access, I encourage you to visit my official website. For those without access to the Internet, I encourage you to call my offices in Jefferson City (573-635-7232) Washington, Mo. (636-239-2276), or Wentzville (636-327-7055) with your questions and concerns. If you want even greater access to what I am working on, please visit my YouTube site, Facebook page, and keep up-to-date with Twitter.