Press Releases

(As prepared for delivery)

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First markup of the 119th Congress and I’m pleased it’s a bipartisan one. 

Today, we are considering four tax administration bills.  These bills are all bipartisan, and we thank our colleagues on the other side for working with us.

The first bill, HR 1155, would require the Treasury Department to establish procedures that would allow a taxpayer to elect to receive a tax refund by direct deposit if the paper check was lost or stolen. I know this has been an issue in some of our districts, and I thank Ms. Sewell and Ms. Malliotakis for their leadership on this bill.  

The second bill, HR 997, would allow the National Taxpayer Advocate to appoint counsel that report directly to the National Taxpayer Advocate rather than to the Treasury Department's General Counsel.  This recommendation was made by the National Taxpayer Advocate and included in her legislative proposals to Congress for a number of years.  I thank Mr. Davis, the Ranking Member of the Worker and Family Support Subcommittee, and Mr. Feenstra for their leadership on this bill.  

The third tax administration bill, HR 998, would require the IRS to provide a clear explanation in notices to taxpayers of any math errors the IRS proposes to adjust. Another recommendation from the National Taxpayer Advocate that was included in her legislative proposals to Congress. I thank Mr. Schneider and Mr. Feenstra for their leadership on this bill.

The final tax administration bill, HR 1152, would extend the "mailbox rule" to electronic tax payments.  The "mailbox rule" provides that payments to the IRS are considered timely filed as long as they are postmarked by midnight on the due date. The National Taxpayer Advocate recommended extending this rule to electronic payments and included it in her legislative proposals to Congress.  I thank Ms. DelBene, Mr. Schneider, Mr. Panetta, and Mr. LaHood for their leadership on this bill.  

Finally, as a reminder to all, unemployment insurance saved the American economy in a time of great uncertainty. Democrats moved quickly to put fraud-fighting dollars in place, and since then Trump’s own IG, Larry Turner, led over 1,400 UI fraud convictions. The President illegally fired him on January 24, jeopardizing the entire effort. You can’t be serious about fighting fraud and ignore that the lead fraud fighter was just canned. 

Although these are not controversial, the Committee should be focusing on the Treasury payment systems. The Democratic Members of the Committee have asked for the Treasury Secretary and DOGE officials to appear before us.  However, this has not happened, despite Speaker Johnson committing to Congresswomen Moore and Chu last week that it would.

In the face of Republican silence, we have had to take matters into our own hands, and will continue to sound the alarm until we get answers for the people.  

 Earlier this week, five former Treasury Secretaries penned an op-ed in the New York Times titled "Democracy is Under Siege."  

An existential crisis is unfolding, and while the courts have temporarily halted access, we still have no answers about the people with access, about what they accessed, what they did with the data. Nothing.

I motion to enter this into the record, and to quote the piece: 

“These political actors have not been subject to the same rigorous ethics rules as civil servants, and one has explicitly retained his role in a private company, creating at best the appearance of financial conflicts of interest.

“They lack training and experience to handle private, personal data — like Social Security numbers and bank account information. Their power subjects America's payment system and the highly sensitive data within it to the risk of exposure, potentially to our adversaries.

“While significant data privacy, cybersecurity, and national security threats are gravely concerning, the constitutional issues are perhaps more alarming . . .  and corrosive to our democracy.

“A key component of the rule of law is the executive branch's commitment to respect Congress' power of the purse: The legislative branch has the sole authority to pass laws that determine where and how federal dollars should be spent.”

Our nation’s credibility is on the line, and I’d expect every member of this Committee to care. Should the situation at Treasury continue to deteriorate and our Republican colleagues keep up their blind eye, I struggle to see how Democrats will be able to support any of these bills on the Floor. 

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

###