Congress should start helping the IRS earn the trust of the American people rather than attack it for political gain

POSTED ON DEC. 19, 2022
By NATHAN J. RICHMAN

Congress should start helping the IRS earn the trust of the American people rather than attack it for political gain, former IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig said.

Speaking December 13 at a conference in Las Vegas hosted by the American Bar Association Section of Taxation, Rettig, just over a month after his term as commissioner ended, said politicians from both parties appear to have pushed narratives about the IRS for personal political gain rather than out of a love for their country.

From allegations of politically targeted audits to claims of a massive increase in armed IRS personnel, Rettig complained about critics he had to handle carefully when he ran the agency. “Congress needs to help in earning the trust and respect for the Internal Revenue Service and not go into narrative political discussions on the backs of the employees of the Internal Revenue Service,” he said.

“I want Congress to be proud of the IRS. I want the American people to be proud of the IRS. I want [the tax community] to be proud of the IRS,” Rettig said.

Rettig expanded on the allegations of political targeting in two ways.

First, Rettig noted that between presidents and Treasury secretaries of both parties, he heard a demand from any of the four only once, when then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin ordered him to increase the audit rate of taxpayers with income over $10 million above 8 percent. Second, he said the rest of the political interference he encountered at the IRS came from members of Congress.

Rettig questioned the talk of cutting the IRS’s annual appropriation after it received nearly $80 billion over 10 years as part of the Inflation Reduction Act (P.L. 117-169). Instead, he said, people who work at the IRS need respect and the tools required to do their jobs, and the IRS needs to be able to keep its employees.

When the tax community tracks the IRS’s plan to spend its long-sought, multiyear funding, it should ensure that the importance of the employees isn’t lost in the shuffle, Rettig said.

“I would ask you to hold the future IRS accountable for the importance of the people, being IRS employees, underserved communities, all taxpayers, and all tax professionals. That, to me, is a job of the private tax practitioner community,” Rettig said.

Rettig said that he is “1,000 percent” supportive of Daniel Werfel, President Biden’s nominee for commissioner, but that he is also at least as supporting of all the agency’s other employees.

“I agree with Chuck that the IRS shouldn’t be a political hot potato but instead should be addressed primarily with an eye to taxpayer service. All congressional constituents are impacted by the level of service at the IRS,” IRS National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins told Tax Notes.