Congressional Republicans want to “bust up the IRS,” U.S. Rep. Jason Smith said Wednesday.
Smith called the Internal Revenue Service “an overgrown, bureaucratic mess” that needs to be addressed as part of tax reform.
He and a number of other members of the House Ways and Means Committee last week wrote a letter asking President Donald Trump to remove IRS commissioner John Koskinen.
The lawmakers said the commissioner should be replaced because he “refuses to be held accountable to the public” and allowed key evidence in a congressional investigation of the agency to be destroyed.
Lawmakers wrote that Koskinen has been “shockingly inept” in dealing with allegations the IRS improperly targeted conservative groups who applied for tax-exempt status.
Smith said Koskinen “lied” to Congress.
The 8th District Republican congressman said in a telephone interview he wants to “redesign it (the IRS) into an agency with a singular mission and that is service first.”
IRS staff “need to understand who they work for, and that is the taxpayers,” he said.
Smith said less than half of the callers to the IRS reach agency staff.
“That is not service first,” he said.
The Associated Press reported earlier this week President Trump has scrapped the tax plan he campaigned on and is going back to the drawing board in a search for a Republican consensus behind legislation to overhaul the U.S. tax system.
But Smith said Republican lawmakers are not starting over when it comes to tax reform.
“We are not starting at ground zero,” Smith said. “We are continuing the process and working to get the best bill out there.”
Republican lawmakers agree that “our tax code is a complete mess,” he said.
“We need to cut our tax rates and we need to simplify the code,” Smith added.
“Right now, it costs Americans over $409 billion to comply with our tax law,” Smith said, adding that tax regulations total more than 70,000 pages.
“It is nu ts. It doesn’t make sense,” he said.
Smith suggested a tax return should be simplified to “fit on a postcard.”
The current tax code has multiple brackets, high tax rates, and provisions that benefit special interests, he said.
“Rules and regulations are too complicated to even understand,” he said.
The Salem, Missouri, lawmaker said Congress last passed a comprehensive tax-reform package in 1986, 31 years ago.
Smith said he believes it is “realistic” for the GOP-led Congress to pass legislation to reduce income-tax rates.
Trump administration officials have concluded it is unlikely a tax overhaul will meet the August deadline set by Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, The Associated Press has reported.
Smith said cabinet secretaries and other government officials “need to quit putting a timeline on things.”
He added, “I don’t care if it takes 21 months. ... Let’s just get tax reform done and not worry about a timeline.”
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