The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“Internal Revenue Service (Executive Session)” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Justice was published in the in the Senate section section on pages S4529-S4530 on Sept. 12.
The Department is one of the oldest in the US, focused primarily on law enforcement and the federal prison system. Downsizing the Federal Government, a project aimed at lowering taxes and boosting federal efficiency, detailed wasteful expenses such as $16 muffins at conferences and board meetings.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
Internal Revenue Service
Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, more than a year ago, a news website by the name of ProPublica published stories that it claims are based on
``a vast trove of Internal Revenue Service data on the tax returns of thousands of the nation's wealthiest people, covering more than 15 years.'' Since then, ProPublica has continued to publish articles that appear to use data leaked or hacked from the IRS.
Despite questions from Congress and immediate expressions of concern from the Treasury Department, as well as the IRS, we don't know any more today than we did a year ago. Even though these apparent leaks of confidential taxpayer information appear to target the wealthy, not just the wealthy but all taxpayers and anyone who cares about effective tax administration should be very concerned. The fact is, until we get answers, we don't know if anyone's tax return or other information submitted to the IRS is actually secure.
At the end of the 2022 filing system, more than 145 million individual income tax returns had been filed with the IRS. Right now, we don't know if there is a current vulnerability to the IRS's systems that makes this personal information accessible within the IRS or to bad actors outside of the IRS. We do not know if a foreign nation with hostile intentions is responsible for a leak or a hack of taxpayer information or the full scope of the IRS's information that may be involved. Just because ProPublica hasn't found it politically useful to publicly disclose your private taxpayer information doesn't mean that your tax information hasn't been compromised.
As I said earlier, in June of 2021, concern was immediately expressed in the Congress and at the Treasury Department. Almost on that very day, Commissioner Rettig appeared before the Finance Committee. In fact, it was on that very day that the first story was published.
Commissioner Rettig said:
I think that trust and confidence in the Internal Revenue Service is sort of the bedrock of asking people and requiring people to provide financial information, and we have, as I said, turned it over to the appropriate investigators, external and internal.
Attorney General Garland was quoted as saying:
This is an extremely serious matter. People are entitled, obviously, to great privacy with respect to their tax returns.
With this level of concern expressed so quickly, now a year ago, you would expect action to have been taken quickly. If you expected that, you would be wrong. Despite several letters sent by this Senator and other Members of Congress, we don't know any more today about what happened than we did last year on June 8, when this situation began.
When testifying before the House Ways and Means Committee, Secretary Yellen said:
I am as anxious as you are to find out what happened.
As a strong proponent of congressional oversight--as I am--of the executive branch, I have always been frustrated when the executive refuses to share relevant information that we need in Congress and are entitled under the Constitution to have. Secretary Yellen's statement suggests a more disturbing possibility where the executive branch completely lacks the sought-after information. Now, consider how shocking it is if the Secretary of the Treasury actually has no insight or any knowledge into a possible massive leak or hack of taxpayer information that occurred under her watch.
In order to determine if any action had been taken, I, along with other Republican members of the Judiciary Committee, wrote to Attorney General Garland and FBI Director Wray on June 24 of this year to ask what the status was of any investigation. This was the second time we tried to get this information.
I know the Department of Justice is capable of taking action quickly when the Department of Justice wants to. I have written to the Attorney General several times about the memo that he issued in response to a letter from the National School Boards Association. That school board letter compared parents to domestic terrorists. It took the Department of Justice only 5 days, which included a weekend, to inject Federal law enforcement into local debates with concerned parents.
Clearly, the Attorney General is capable of taking action very quickly, but that seems to only be when an administrative priority is of concern. I hope the Biden administration and the Garland Department of Justice would be as concerned about the protection of confidential taxpayer information as they are about monitoring concerned parents who testify before a school board.
If the Department of Justice and the FBI want to show that they take the confidentiality of taxpayer information seriously, they can start by fully and completely responding to my letter of June 24, which hasn't yet been responded to. More than a full year, with a complete filing season, is too much time to have gone by without having any information on this leaking of taxpayer information being provided to any extent.
Democrats constantly spoke of the need for fairness in the tax system as they pushed through partisan tax-and-spending bills. Yet we have heard barely a peep out of our Democratic colleagues on what may be the largest unauthorized disclosure of taxpayer information in history.
While we continue to wait for answers, we have learned of another massive breach of taxpayer information.
On the first Friday of September, we learned the IRS mistakenly published on its website private information from about 120,000 taxpayers. According to Politico, the disclosure consisted of ``details from business tax returns filed by tax-exempt organizations and retirement accounts, included people's names, business contact information and income produced by certain investments.''
Clearly, the ability of the IRS to safeguard taxpayer information is still an ongoing issue.
This new revelation should light a very big fire underneath the FBI to get at the bottom of the ProPublica leak or hack. Attorney General Garland and FBI Director Wray must fully respond to my letter and help all of us really understand if our tax system is safe and secure.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Duckworth). The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. MURPHY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
