House report advises eliminating IRS commissioner job

Republican lawmakers on Tuesday proposed a total revamping of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), accusing the agency of being a political group rather than a nonpartisan government collection agency, according to the House pf Representatives Oversight Committee's latest report titled, "Making Sure Targeting Never Happens: Getting Politics Out of the IRS and Other Solutions."

The Oversight Committee's Republican members, led by Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif.., claim they have overwhelming evidence that President Barack Obama’s unprecedented condemnation of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the controversial Citizens United case encouraged IRS's upper-echelon staff members to target conservative groups such as the numerous Tea Party organizations, pro-gun owner groups, and other conservative or libertarian organizations. The House report also states that too many IRS executives were overwhelmed with kicking off the IRS's role in the Affordable Care Act of 2010, a/k/a ObamaCare, which in essence allowed IRS officials like Lois Lerner, the former director of tax-exempt groups and the central figure in the Tea Party controversy, to have too much autonomy for a political operative in a supposedly non-political position..

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Under the President Barack Obama, the IRS has become a partisan "body and full-fledged arm of the administration in power,” the Oversight report said. One of the key changes sought by the Oversight Committee's Republican members report is the elimination of the position of Commissioner of the IRS and the creation of a bipartisan group that could manage the agency that is responsible for handling trillions of taxpayer dollars. Rep. Darrell Issa's July 29 report states: Other operational failures within the IRS contributed to the targeting. The IRS trained its agents to identify and elevate applications that could draw media attention, even though media attention has no bearing on a group’s qualification for tax-exemption. As Washington employees evaluated the applications, they evaluated whether the groups’ activities were “good” nonprofit activities or merely “emotional” propaganda with “little educational value.”The IRS allowed these tax-exempt applications to languish for years without action. Subsequently, as it sought to work through the backlog, the agency requested inappropriate and burdensome information from groups applying for tax-exempt status. But the committee member jokingly referred to as Issa's arch-rival, Maryland Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings, condemned the new report, and took issue with the proposal to eliminate the IRS commissioner’s position. However, during the Issa-led IRS probe, information obtained by the public-interest group, Judicial Watch, points to Rep. Cummings being one of the Democrats who had complained to Lerner about the non-profit groups that opposed the overall Democratic Party political agenda. One of the Republican proposals that's sure to anger Obama and his minions is the suggestion that the Affordable Care Act implementation be taken away from the IRS and given to a more nonpartisan group that's free from White House manipulation.