[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 126 (Friday, September 13, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10546-S10551]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       TAX REFORM AND TAX RELIEF

  Mr. COVERDELL. Madam President, it is our intention during the hour 
under our control to continue the discussion of the importance of tax 
reform and tax relief for the American people at this time in which 
they are bearing the highest tax burden in American history. We have 
been joined by my distinguished colleague from Wyoming. I yield up to 
10 minutes to the Senator for the purpose of expounding on this 
subject.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. THOMAS. I thank the Senator from Georgia for setting up some time 
to talk about the issue that most of us talk about all the time, and 
that is taxes. It is an issue we should talk about. It is an issue that 
cuts very deeply into our lives. We spend an average of nearly 40 
percent of our income on taxes at various levels. So it is something we 
ought to talk about.
  I think part of the focus today--I talked about this earlier, as a 
matter of fact--is on the philosophical idea of taxation, whether you 
have less or more, whether you have smaller government or larger 
government, and that is a choice. But, more specifically, I think this 
hour was to look a little bit at simplification, to look a little bit 
at the difficulty of collection, to look a little bit at some of the 
debates and discussions that go on with respect to the IRS. Many people 
are very disillusioned with the IRS, and I do not defend that agency 
particularly, but I do tell you basically you have to have a 
simplification of taxation if you are going to have simplification of 
collection. Probably there is nobody here who would disagree with that. 
But it never seems to happen.
  Every year we talk about simplification. Every year we talk about 
making it easier. But we keep going on. The current tax system is a 
mess. It is extremely difficult. It is a result of probably 80 years of 
debate and discussion and, frankly, abuse, by lawmakers, by lobbyists, 
by special interests--perhaps unintentionally. But, in any event, I 
think no one would argue with the fact that we have, now, a tax system 
that is extremely difficult, extremely cumbersome, extremely 
ineffective and unfair. It is certainly too complex and much too 
costly. And of course the tax system itself punishes the idea of 
investment, punishes the idea of incentive, punishes the idea of 
saving. And all those things go together.
  I have already mentioned the figures. We pay nearly 40 percent. That 
is an astounding figure, really, in terms of a working family who--most 
families are working families--has to work until late May to pay their 
taxes.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Madam President, I wonder if the Senator will yield 
for a question?
  Mr. THOMAS. Certainly.
  Mr. COVERDELL. In this debate about the working family there are two 
figures that are constantly quoted. One is 40 percent. I typically use 
50. I wonder if the Senator would agree, when you add on the regulatory 
costs and that family's share of higher interest rates because of the 
national debt, you end up with another $9,000 coming out of the 
checking account of the average family. It really takes it to over 50 
percent, dealing with the cost of government.

  Mr. THOMAS. I am sure that is correct. And it is an even more 
astounding figure than we have.
  It is set up so we do not think about it a lot. I do not object to 
the idea of withholding. It is probably the only way to do it. But 
withholding sort of slips in there and you hear people talking all the 
time, ``Well, gee, I got money back.'' It is my money. It is my money. 
Back from where?
  Anyway, it is a very high figure. But it seems to me--and I wanted to 
focus on this, and I am going to speak for just a few minutes about 
this--it is too complicated, much too complicated, and too difficult to 
figure. Again, an estimate is 4.5 billion hours a year are spent in the 
preparation of tax returns. That is an astounding number as well.
  Each of us knows how difficult it is to figure our taxes. They are 
too hard to enforce. The more complicated, the more difficult it is in 
the tax system, obviously it is more difficult to enforce. And 
enforcement is important. You have to ensure that, when you have a tax 
system, that everyone is treated fairly in that tax system, that 
everybody contributes what under the law they are supposed to 
contribute. So the tax system makes it most difficult.
  Probably there are too many loopholes. They are often called 
loopholes. The fact is, over time, the Tax Code has been used to affect 
behavior. When we wanted someone to do something we changed the taxes 
and made it an incentive to do it. So we have all these series of 
things which have very little to do, frankly, with paying taxes. They 
actually have very little to do with the fairness of taxation, but have 
more to do, in fact, with seeking to modify behavior. Maybe that is a 
legitimate function of taxes. But I can tell you, it makes it much, 
much more difficult. It probably makes it much, much more unfair, in 
terms of the total collection.
  I think we had, this year, as an example, a real demonstration of how 
frustrated people are when there was the kind of discussion and 
acceptance, frankly, of the so-called flat tax. Obviously the most 
attractive thing about a flat tax was the ease with which it could be 
collected. There is argument about the fairness of it. Those who have 
studied it feel it is even more fair. I do not argue with that.
  Politically, it probably is not going to happen. There are some 
things like homeowners' interest and those kinds of things that are 
going to be very difficult, politically, to change. The argument is, of 
course, if I am an investor in your company and you pay me a dividend, 
that dividend has been paid after

[[Page S10547]]

tax, so I should not have to pay it again on the dividend. But when you 
see someone with a large income from dividends, politically that is 
probably not going to happen.
  Nevertheless, the point is, it was very attractive for Americans to 
talk about a simpler, easier, more fair tax system, whatever it is. I 
am no expert on that, but I think it must be possible to do that. It 
must be possible to find a way to come up with a system that makes it 
easier to enforce. So we get away from the idea of having an agency 
like the IRS, that has to do the things it has to do. I am not being an 
apologist for some of the behavior that IRS might use on people to do 
this. But, nevertheless, the fact remains that they have a terribly 
difficult job, to enforce this kind of a convoluted tax system.
  So, Madam President, I think there are lots of things we could too. I 
have a hunch, if we eliminated a lot of the exemptions, the lower rate 
would offset some of the things that are now in there as exemptions. We 
would find it would work better. I think collections would be higher if 
it were simpler, and we would have fewer problems.

  There are many reform and simplification ideas out there. Frankly, I 
would support a plan, obviously, that deals with fairness. You have to 
be fair as to whoever pays their fair share; simplicity ought to be an 
issue, we ought to be able to make it much more simple, particularly 
with some of the equipment that we have now. I think we ought to reduce 
the burden. We have to pay for the Government we have, but we can do 
with substantially less. We can do with shifting many of these 
activities closer to home, so voters would know, when they made a cost-
benefit analysis. Expenditures at the Federal level are very difficult 
to measure.
  At home, in the school district, when they say we are going to have a 
bond issue and we are going to build a science room and it is going to 
take $400,000, then you say OK, is it worth it? Am I going to do it? 
You have a cost-benefit ratio. How do you do that in the Federal 
Government, tell me, in a $1.5 trillion budget where even people here 
are not certain what is in the thing? So we can do that. And the result 
would be to rein in the role of the Internal Revenue Service and we can 
do that by simplifying, reducing, making easier a tax system.
  Madam President, I hope that we do that.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Madam President, I thank my colleague from Wyoming, 
once again, for the contributions he makes in general to this Nation, 
but I appreciate his being here this afternoon to talk about the issue 
of the Internal Revenue Service and its broader implications on taxes.
  As you know, Madam President, one of the centerpieces of Senator 
Dole's economic plan is to focus on the IRS and how it interacts with 
the American people.
  I am going to read an article that recently appeared on June 7, 1996. 
It refers to a General Accounting Office report on the Internal Revenue 
Service, which I am going to quote from in just a moment.
  This article says:

       A congressional audit of the Internal Revenue Service 
     asserted yesterday that the agency that scrutinizes 
     taxpayers' finances cannot properly--

  Cannot properly.

     keep track of the $1.4 trillion it collects each year.

  Given the stories--and all of us are familiar with them, of the way 
taxpayers are treated from time to time by this agency --it is a bit 
ironic that the General Accounting Office would say that they cannot 
keep track of the money they collect.
  It goes on to say:

       ``The agency that is so strict on the way Americans keep 
     their books cannot itself pass a financial audit,'' 
     complained Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) chairman of the 
     Governmental Affairs Committee. Stevens, reviewing the fiscal 
     1995 audit by the General Accounting Office, raised the 
     possibility of Congress appointing an outside control board 
     to run the IRS.

  That is an interesting idea, somebody that they would have to be 
accountable to, like the citizens have to be accountable to them.
  He says:

       It would be a board similar to the one overseeing the 
     District of Columbia Government.
       In the House of Representatives, Representative Jim 
     Lightfoot (R-IA) chairman of the appropriations subcommittee 
     controlling the IRS budget, said an outside board would be 
     something worth considering.

  And I certainly concur with that.

       ``Management has been a problem there,'' he said. The GAO 
     audit said fundamental persistent problems remain uncorrected 
     --

  Madam President, uncorrected for the fourth year in a row. For the 
fourth year in a row, these problems remain uncorrected. I am sure the 
Presiding Officer, from time to time, has had to fill out her tax 
returns and remembers that the agency did not allow the Senator 4 years 
to work things out. They had to be done on a deadline date certain.

       The IRS report said it cannot reconcile--

  Let me just read from the report rather than this article. This is 
the General Accounting Office financial audit, dated July 1996, 
``Examination of IRS's Fiscal Year 1995 Financial Statements.'' It is 
voluminous, but it says:

       The following five financial management problems, which 
     have undermined our ability to attest to the reliability of 
     IRS financial statements for the past 4 fiscal years, provide 
     the basis for these conclusions.
       1. The amounts of total revenue--
  That's taxes.

     $1.4 trillion and tax refunds, $122 billion, cannot be 
     verified or reconciled to accounting records maintained for 
     individual taxpayers in the aggregate.
       2. The amounts reported for various types of taxes 
     collected--Social Security, income, excise taxes, for 
     example--cannot be substantiated.
       3. The reliability of reported estimates of $113 billion 
     for valid accounts receivable and $46 billion for collectible 
     accounts receivable cannot be determined.
       4. A significant portion of IRS's reported $3 billion in 
     nonpayroll operating expenses cannot be verified.
       5. The amounts IRS reported as appropriations available for 
     expenditure for operations cannot be reconciled fully with 
     Treasury's central accounting records showing these amounts, 
     and hundreds of millions of dollars in differences have been 
     identified.

  Madam President, if this was the report that an individual taxpayer 
got--``cannot be reconciled,'' ``cannot be verified,'' ``cannot be 
determined,'' ``cannot be identified''--that taxpayer would be in a 
world of hurt and trouble. It would be unthinkable that you could 
engage this agency and have them finding that you could not reconcile 
your records, you could not determine what your income was, you could 
not put anything together, you could not account for it. You would be 
in deep trouble.
  This agency needs to reflect on that. There are over 100,000 
employees, and we know they are very dedicated employees, but this is 
unconscionable that they would receive a report like this and demand 
the kind of adherence to specificity and to timing that they ask of the 
American citizens but do not subscribe to themselves.
  This issue of the Internal Revenue Service has taken on new 
proportions of late, because Representative Jennifer Dunn of Washington 
in a speech made a remark that basically said the agency ought to 
adhere to standards that it demands of people. And I just talked about 
that. The Government findings are that the agency can't manage its own 
affairs to the extent that they are demanding of the American people.
  We have been in a discussion this afternoon about the Internal 
Revenue Service. I have alluded to the General Accounting Office this 
year has found grave fault with this agency and the manner in which it 
maintains its own financial records.
  There are even suggestions in both Houses now for a control board to 
oversee the agency. I pointed out very recently this issue has been 
elevated because Congresswoman Dunn, Jennifer Dunn, from Washington, 
had said, you know, the agency ought to be held to the same kind of 
standards that the American people are held to. And that irritated the 
agency. And the agency indicated, in a letter to Ms. Dunn, among other 
things, by Margaret Milner Richardson, who is the Commissioner of the 
Internal Revenue Service--she said she was dismayed and confused to 
hear this Congresswoman suggest that there was something less than 
perfect going on at the Internal Revenue Service. And she goes on to 
say, ``Taxpayers now pay about 87 percent of what they owe. 
Noncompliance is a serious problem that deprives our

[[Page S10548]]

Government of more than $90 billion in revenue annually.''
  I am sort of curious, how do they know? How does the Internal Revenue 
Service know what legitimate taxes are not being paid? The tone of this 
suggests, ``These American citizens out here, we need to be watching 
over them, make darn sure they pay what they are supposed to pay!'' It 
is kind of like all of our citizens are looking for a way to defraud 
the American Government, for Heaven's sake.
  I will read this report and then I will turn to my colleague from 
Utah. This is a copyright 1994 News World Communications, Inc., the 
Washington Times, August 2, 1994. The headline of the article, ``IRS 
Bullies.'' ``Last week the House was debating discharge position 12 
which would ensure that the taxpayer is innocent''--not guilty, as this 
might suggest--``is innocent until proven guilty.''
  We have two sets of laws in America: You are innocent in America 
until you are proven guilty, but that is not always the case if you are 
dealing with the IRS.
  About the same time, ``Inside the Beltway'' disclosed for the first 
time Washington lawyer, Susan Allen's incredible encounter with John 
Richardson, the husband of Internal Revenue Service Commissioner 
Margaret Richardson, who wrote this letter to Congresswoman Dunn:

       Mr. Richardson, the lawyer told us, had parked his black 
     Volvo across an alley driveway leading from her Northwest 
     home, preventing her from driving out of her garage. When Mr. 
     Richardson was summoned from a nearby restaurant, she said he 
     huffed, ``Margaret Richardson'' [that is the commissioner of 
     Internal Revenue Service] ``is my wife, and she is the IRS 
     commissioner, and I hope you paid your taxes.'' The surprised 
     lawyer couldn't believe her ears, so Mr. Richardson gladly 
     huffed again: ``My wife is the commissioner of IRS and I hope 
     you paid your taxes.''

  We have an attitude issue here, Madam President. It is not just this 
agency. About 85 percent of the people that come through my office are 
concerned, in one way or another, about the treatment they receive from 
their Government. I grew up thinking the Government was supposed to be 
a partner, not a bully or a boss. I think these things deserve some 
serious attention.
  We have been joined by my colleague from the good State of Utah. I 
yield up to 10 minutes to the Senator from Utah.
  Mr. BENNETT. Madam President, I have two points to make with respect 
to the IRS.
  Let me preface this by saying that the IRS has a large facility in my 
State, in Utah, in Ogden, and by and large the overwhelming majority of 
the people who work in that facility are honest, hard-working, 
dedicated Americans who are as anxious to do a good job as anybody in 
any other agency.
  I learned when I was in the business world that when something is 
wrong, seriously wrong with an organization, it is usually not with the 
people. It is usually with the system that they are operating and with 
the culture.
  I wish to make two points about the IRS system and culture, with the 
understanding that I am not criticizing hard-working, dedicated 
individual civil servants who are doing the best they can in a 
difficult circumstance.
  First, the system. Rather than discuss individual horror stories--I 
will get to that when I talk about culture--I want to go to formal 
examinations of the IRS that are before us as Members of Congress and 
call the attention of my fellow Senators and others to two reports. One 
is from the GAO, the General Accounting Office, that came out in August 
of this year. It says ``Tax Systems Modernization.'' That is the 
standard headline, but look at the subheadline that is right there on 
the front of the report. It says, ``Cyberfile Project Was Poorly 
Planned And Managed.''

  Then on the heels of that, in September 1996, hot off the presses, if 
you will, the General Accounting Office ``Internal Revenue Service''; 
the subhead, ``Business Operations Need Continued Improvement.''
  These were both submitted to the Governmental Affairs Committee, the 
chairman of which, Senator Stevens of Alaska, has shared them with me. 
Let me give a summary of what is in these reports. Again, I look at 
this as a businessman, and I must say, Madam President, I am appalled. 
The IRS has not passed an audit during the 5 years they have been 
audited. Their major failures are they cannot account for revenues from 
tax returns and refunds. They cannot account for goods received against 
payments made, and there are computer security weaknesses that have 
allowed IRS workers to view and alter returns. Think of the movies we 
have seen of the hacker getting into the system. Well, IRS employees 
can get into the system and not alter grades the way they do in the 
movies or set off nuclear wars, but at least alter the returns of some 
of their friends, if they want to.
  The recent GAO audit found that interim computer security procedures 
have been improved, but these weaknesses still remain. The amounts of 
total revenue, $1.4 trillion, and tax refunds, $122 billion, cannot be 
verified or reconciled to accounting records maintained for individual 
taxpayers in the aggregate. In other words, we have a business here 
that for 5 years has been unable to close its books because they cannot 
bring them into balance. They cannot reconcile the numbers on this side 
with the numbers on that side. I find that astounding--5 years and they 
still cannot reconcile the amounts of total revenue and tax refunds to 
their accounting records maintained for individual taxpayers. I wonder 
how forgiving the IRS would be in an audit of a business that said for 
5 years we have been unable to reconcile these amounts.
  Next, the amounts reported for various types of taxes collected--for 
example, Social Security and income taxes and excise taxes--cannot be 
substantiated.
  Next, the reliability of reported estimates of $113 billion for valid 
accounts receivable and $46 billion for collectible accounts receivable 
cannot be determined.
  Next, a significant portion of IRS's reported $3 billion in 
nonpayroll operating expenses cannot be verified. The amounts IRS 
reported as appropriations available for expenditure for operations 
cannot be reconciled with the Treasury's central accounting records 
showing these amounts. The differences are in the hundreds of millions 
of dollars. Again, how would the IRS react to a company that showed 
differences in accounts between one division and the other that were 
hundreds of millions of dollars in size, and was unable to reconcile 
them?
  Now, the reason the IRS says it is so difficult for them to pass an 
audit on these issues is that they were never required to do so until 
the Chief Financial Officer Act was passed. Therefore, they say their 
financial management systems and procedures were never set up to be 
audited.
  This is incredible. For 5 years, they have been unable to pass an 
audit. They cannot reconcile their accounts, either internally, or with 
the Treasury. Yet, they ask us to have a high degree of confidence in 
the way they handle our taxpayers' money. So that is my first point 
with respect to the structure.
  Now, if I may, I will talk about the culture of the IRS. As my 
colleague from Georgia has done, I will use examples out of my own 
office as a Senator. Here is one.
  A taxpayer pays the tax he figures he owes; he sends the tax in to 
the IRS. The payment sits there for a year and a half, and he hears 
nothing back. Then, for some reason, the entire amount he paid is sent 
back to him, with no explanation. The IRS simply sends it back after a 
year and a half--no explanation, no indication. Two days later, they 
send him a notice saying that he owes tax for that year at a lesser 
amount than the amount he had sent them and demands that it be paid 
immediately. And then, a few weeks later, a notice comes that interest 
and penalty are now due on the tax that he just paid. He pays the tax, 
they keep it for a year and a half, send it back to him, with no 
explanation, then send him a new tax bill. He pays that, and he is told 
he owes interest and penalty on the new tax bill because he hadn't paid 
his taxes on time a year and a half before. Well, he thinks, surely, 
when he explains this, somebody will straighten it out. He goes to the 
IRS and gets no assistance whatsoever. He was told he owed the interest 
and penalty, and if he did not pay it, the penalty would continue to 
accrue.

[[Page S10549]]

  Finally, he came to my office. My constituent liaison person made 
inquiry with the local IRS people and was told there is no way, 
legally, to cancel the interest and penalty in this case. Well, 
fortunately, the members of my staff are as persistent as I would hope 
they would be. They did not accept that as an answer and, ultimately, 
the case was resolved. But what does it say about the Agency when it 
takes the muscle a U.S. Senator to get them to resolve something that 
is so absurd, as this was?
  The second case, which is not an individual case but a series of 
cases that we see--and I would assume that my colleagues see--in our 
offices often as well. Homemakers, women in marriages that go along for 
a while, and then they don't work out. They always filed joint returns. 
The husband fills out the joint return, signs it, hands it to his wife, 
says, ``Sign it here, I am sending off the tax return.'' They sign it 
without really understanding what is going on. And then the marriage 
breaks up, a divorce takes place. The woman has to find a job. She goes 
out and gets a job, only to discover that her wages are now being 
attached by the IRS for back taxes that her husband never paid. He did 
not tell her that he wasn't paying them. He, indeed, lied to her and 
told her they were being paid and they were all taken care of. She was 
being defrauded by her husband. But instead of coming after the 
husband, the IRS comes after her. Why? Because she is the one working. 
The husband disappeared. She is working and she has to put her life 
back together. Many times children are involved that she has to 
support. But instead of saying, yes, we recognize that in the situation 
you were in before, you, in fact, had no control over the family 
finances, they are now saying, no, because you signed that return, you 
are due for those taxes because we can't find your husband.

  Even in those cases where the woman can prove she did not sign the 
return, the husband signed her name, forged it, the IRS says, no, your 
name was on there, there was a signature, and you are coming into the 
work force, trying to put your life back together, trying to take care 
of your kids, and you are now responsible for the taxes that your 
former husband refused to pay. The women in these circumstances feel 
intimidated, scared, frustrated and, above all, confused.
  We had one who finally came to my office asking for assistance 
because the collection officer was abrasive, intimidating, and 
demanding. Once again, it was only after my congressional liaison 
person got involved that this woman got some degree of relief from 
this.
  So those are the two points I leave you with, Madam President. First, 
the system, as indicated in these two reports, has very serious 
systematic problems--trillions of dollars, and they can't make their 
books balance, internally or with the Treasury books. Second, the 
culture, where IRS agents find themselves intimidating and demanding, 
and where ordinary citizens are seeking some kind of redress and 
protection and ultimately come to Members of the U.S. Senate for help.
  One final comment. I don't know how true this is of other Senators. I 
am one who has gone through an IRS audit. I found it a relatively 
painless kind of experience. I was fully prepared. The individual on 
the other side recognized that, and we went through things in a civil, 
proper fashion, and I commented on that to another friend, saying I had 
been through an IRS audit, and it's not all that bad. He looked at me 
and he said, ``Bob, it is entirely the luck of the draw. It depends on 
which agent you get that day. You were lucky enough to get the 
intelligent, properly motivated, properly directed, dedicated civil 
servant. I got the other kind. I can tell you, it depends on which one 
is on duty when your number comes up.''
  It should not be that way, Madam President. We should have equal 
justice under the law, and everybody should be treated the same.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Utah for his 
very revealing comments. He was on target. I appreciate very much him 
joining us this afternoon. I am now going to yield up to 10 minutes to 
my colleague from Minnesota.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
  Mr. GRAMS. Madam President, when 2,000 American job providers came to 
Washington last June to attend what was called the Third White House 
Conference on Small Business, they brought with them hundreds of ideas 
on how to make Government more responsive--to the taxpayers and to 
small business alike.
  They condensed their suggestions into a list of 60 to send on to the 
White House. Even though their recommendations covered a tremendous 
range of concerns, one point generated near universal agreement from 
that conference, and that was that something must be done about the 
complex and costly Federal tax system.
  Well, there's nothing simple about taxes anymore, as you have heard 
here today. As any taxpayer will tell you, the IRS today is five times 
bigger than the FBI, and it's twice as large as the CIA. To run such a 
massive operation takes the equivalent of more than 3 million full-time 
employees. We have more Americans collecting taxes than we have serving 
in the Armed Forces.

  The IRS manages a library of 437 separate tax forms. The IRS mails 
out over 8 billion pages of tax instructions every year.
  Now, our colleague in the House, the distinguished majority leader 
from Texas, points out that American workers and businesses spent 5.4 
billion hours in 1990 just preparing their taxes. That is more time 
than it takes to build every car, truck, and van that is manufactured 
in the United States every year. Just to administer a tax system so 
unwieldy costs our taxpayers almost $14 billion a year.
  Even though the IRS demands strict compliance from the American 
people, it has set far lower standards for itself, as our colleague 
from Utah points out. It has long permitted itself severe abuses within 
its own accounting practices--something they would not tolerate from 
businesses or individuals.
  In a report issued last year, the General Accounting Office took the 
IRS to task for failing to keep its own books and records with the same 
accuracy that it demands of the taxpayers.
  For the last 2 years, in fact, the GAO has not been able to express 
an opinion on the financial statements of the IRS, and that was due to 
serious accounting errors and internal control problems. More than 20 
months later, the problems still remain.
  In testimony before Congress in June, Gregory Holloway of the GAO 
reported:

       We have made 59 recommendations to improve the IRS's 
     financial management systems and reporting. IRS agreed with 
     these recommendations and has worked to implement them and 
     correct its financial management systems and information 
     problems. However, many of the more significant 
     recommendations have not yet been fully implemented.

  There are other ways in which the management problems within the IRS 
are manifesting themselves. And far too many of my constituents are 
forced to deal with the fallout on a daily basis.
  Madam President, every American has experienced the frustration of 
filing their Federal tax returns. Even though Congress has tripled 
funding for the IRS over the last 7 years to the tune of $7.5 billion, 
the level of service provided to the taxpayers has not grown 
proportionally. In recent years, the IRS has invested billions of 
taxpayer dollars in its efforts to modernize its operations, including 
its information systems--but the GAO has dubbed the results 
``chaotic.'' As an ironic consequence, the IRS, the Nation's tax 
collector, is perhaps the least taxpayer-friendly agency in the entire 
Federal Government.
  Meanwhile, the Federal tax system continues to grow more complicated 
and hard to understand. In the mid-1950's, the Federal Income Tax Code 
was comprised of 103 sections and 400,000 words.
  Today, it has ballooned to 698 sections--a 578-percent increase--and 
nearly 1.4 million words.
  Adding to the aggravation of the Nation's taxpayers, tax regulations 
have multiplied just as rapidly.
  Between 1955 and 1994, the number of words in the regulations of the 
Internal Revenue Code increased more than 550 percent, from just over 1 
million words to 5.7 million in the IRS Code.
  Even if you are a trained speed reader who can read 1,000 words a 
minute, and you did not do anything else but

[[Page S10550]]

devote every hour of every business day to reading these regulations, 
it would take you almost 3 years to wade through them.
  The rapid growth of the Federal Tax Code and its regulations has 
dramatically increased the complexity of our tax system, to the point 
where no one but a very few tax specialists can understand it. Even IRS 
agents are often confused by their own tax laws. The complexity of the 
Federal tax system means that tax assistance for ordinary American 
taxpayers is even more urgent now than ever before.
  But this desperately needed assistance has not been adequately 
provided. For example, my State office receives complaints daily from 
constituents frustrated they cannot get through to a human being at the 
toll-free lines established by the IRS: The lines are constantly busy. 
In some cases, my constituents have tried for 3 or 4 days before they 
finally reached a real, live person.
  In July, I received this letter from a taxpayer in St. Paul who was 
being threatened with a lawsuit by the IRS:

       I am one of those middle-age, lower-middle-class citizens 
     who have pulled myself from extreme tragedy to the point 
     where I am trying to buy my house, I've never had the 
     government or any agency help me.
       And now my entire life is threatened because I can't talk 
     to a human being about my taxes. Please help me. I have sent 
     a copy of this to the IRS, the White House, Senator 
     Wellstone, and no one seems to be able to help. I can't 
     believe that I cannot find a human being in the IRS to talk 
     to.

  Another constituent of mine who tried repeatedly to reach someone at 
the hotline shared their frustration with the IRS operator when their 
call was finally answered. ``Blame it on Congress. They cut our 
budget,'' said the operator. The IRS employee ended the call by 
advising my constituent to telephone me and demand more tax dollars for 
the IRS.
  Let us go back over that again. He finally got through after days and 
was finally able to talk to an operator at the IRS. And the answer he 
got was ``Blame it on Congress'' because ``they cut our budget.'' And 
before he got off the phone the operator, the IRS person, told them to 
call me in Washington and demand more money for the IRS.
  I suggest, Madam President, that throwing more dollars at an agency 
that already cannot account for $1.4 trillion tax dollars it takes in 
annually is hardly the solution.
  The Federal Government enacts laws that we require the people to 
obey. But in the case of the IRS telephone hotline service, we have 
failed to provide sufficient assistance to enable average Americans to 
understand and comply with the laws.
  And when innocent incompliance occurs due to the complexity of the 
tax system, we punish the taxpayers by imposing all sorts of penalties. 
This is simply not fair.
  Let me give you two examples. A certain individual in Minnesota told 
me about a problem he had. He paid about $35,000 in taxes but didn't 
file his return until October. But he had filed all the necessary 
extensions that he needed to file to get the extension on his return. 
The IRS had already collected about $35,000. But he was still short 
about $4,000, which he paid plus interest. But even after paying all 
those taxes he still was find $700 for being late.
  Another individual that is self-employed told me that he pays his 
taxes every year quarterly estimating his taxes, and at one time he 
received more money in payments from his clients than he expected, and 
when he paid taxes on that, IRS came back and fined him $500 because he 
had failed to report that correctly.
  Madam President, I do not know if that is fair, or what is intended 
when we have taxpayers out there trying to meet the laws, obey the 
codes, and yet are fined by this agency.
  Madam President, I am pleased the Senate took action this week to 
resolve this most frustrating situation by accepting my amendment to 
the Treasury-Postal appropriations legislation. The amendment will help 
correct the problem by making the IRS prioritize its toll-free 
telephone service and allocate the necessary resources to ensure that 
taxpayers receive adequate assistance and answers to their questions.
  This will not solve most of the problems plaguing the IRS, of course, 
but it marks a start. I am happy to see additional solutions being 
proposed, and I am especially pleased that our former majority leader, 
Bob Dole, is speaking loudly about our need to forever end the IRS as 
we know it.
  He has pledged to ``free the American people from tax tyranny,'' and 
the ideas for IRS reform he has put forward in his economic blueprint 
have raised the level of this debate.
  They deserve a close look by the taxpayers, as we seek to build an 
IRS that will be a tool for the taxpayers, not a weapon against them.
  Thank you very much, Madam President.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Madam President, when Senator Dole left the Senate, I 
looked down at this desk, and I said that I would ``never forget or 
look at this desk without seeing him or thinking of him.''
  He is now engaged in a very long journey. As the Senator from 
Minnesota just alluded to, he put forward a very broad economic plan 
that deals with the IRS that we have just been discussing, along with 
other policies such as the 15-percent across-the-board tax break, and 
others.
  Yesterday, my good colleague from Nebraska came to the floor--and, of 
course, he was the longest serving Governor of Nebraska, and he has 
been in the Senate 18 years--and I was taken aback by his comments 
about Senator Dole.
  Just to quote here, he calls it:

       The latest ``Follow the Yellow Brick Road'' path of 
     wizardry blends $550 billion in tax breaks, unspecified 
     spending cuts, and rosy economic scenarios into one shameless 
     political ploy. When the unsuspecting Dorothys of the world 
     pull back in wonderment the curtain, they discover a huffing 
     and puffing candidate, Bob Dole, as the wizard. This is the 
     same wizard who for the first 72 years of his life forswore 
     such economic nonsense. Bob Dole's transformation from a 
     deficit hawk into a carrier pigeon for supply * * *
  Well, anyway, I just do not think those kinds of remarks are fitting 
in public discourse, and certainly here in the Hall of the greatest 
legislative Chamber in the history of the world I do not think they are 
fitting remarks. We can debate our differences about our views on tax 
relief and economic policy without resorting to this kind of language. 
I do not think it is fitting for the Senate, and I wanted to say so 
here rather than off in some klatch someplace.

  The Senator from Nebraska went on to ridicule the economics of the 
1980's which, I might point out, was the longest peacetime economic 
recovery in the history of the United States. He apologized to America 
for having supported the Reagan tax cuts, and he said it was worst vote 
he had ever cast and a mistake.
  I find it hard to characterize beginning the longest peacetime 
recovery as a mistake; or ending double-digit inflation, which had been 
13 percent, he now characterizes trying to correct that and correcting 
that as a mistake; getting interest rates down--people do not remember 
but they were as high as 22 percent, and this economic recovery, of 
course, reduced it dramatically, but he characterizes that as a 
mistake; or was creating 20 million new jobs in that glorious decade a 
mistake, as he characterizes it and regretted having ever voted to 
support it; or rebuilding our national defense and economy, winning the 
war over communism, ending the cold war, and he characterizes that as a 
mistake.
  Madam President, right now I talk a lot about the American family. I 
do not think we can talk enough about them. In my State, after they pay 
their Federal taxes, State taxes, local taxes, their share of the 
increased interest on the national debt, their share of the costs of 
the burden of regulation in America which is now $7,000 for an average 
family of four, they have less than half the money they earn in their 
checking account. They are left with only 47 percent of their wages--
unbelievable. No wonder there is much anxiety and pressure and worry in 
middle-income families of America.
  This administration which promised to lower that pressure--it was a 
very major political statement to the country--really did not get its 
bags unpacked before it imposed a $491 billion tax increase--the 
highest in American history.
  Madam President, $491 billion, what does that mean to this family I 
was

[[Page S10551]]

just talking about? It means that they lost in the last 3 years 
somewhere between $2,000 and $2,600 per year less in their checking 
account which was already under duress.
  The result of this tax increase is that we now pay 30.4 percent of 
the gross domestic product in taxes. This is the highest that it has 
ever been in American history. The tax burden has never been higher, 
and under the current economic plan as proposed by President Clinton it 
will rise to its highest level ever, 19.3 percent of the gross domestic 
product.
  The point I am making here is that for Senator Dole to come forward 
and say we ought to lower this burden, it means that this family that 
has lost $2,000-plus per year under the 15 percent across-the-board tax 
relief will get about $1,200 to $1,400 of that back. That makes a lot 
of sense. If a family cannot even keep half the wages they earn, I 
think it is sound policy to try to reverse that and get some of those 
resources back in that family's checking account so that they can see 
to the raising of the children, the education, the housing, 
the transportation, the food, all of that which we depend on the 
American family to do. We have made it almost impossible for the 
American family to do that which they are supposed to do.

  In addition, that plan embraces a balanced budget amendment to the 
Constitution. I might point out that Senator Exon of Nebraska was one 
of the seven that changed his vote which caused the failure of passage 
of the balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.
  Senator Dole has embraced that. We have talked about the IRS here, 
saying we are going to get into that agency and produce a cultural 
attitude that is consistent with being a partner to America and not a 
boss over America, saying that you are going to balance the budget by 
the year 2002 which will lower interest rates--it will lower what this 
American family has to pay on the mortgage for their home, car, 
refrigerator, their credit card.
  All of these proposals make a lot of sense, and it is all right that 
we disagree and debate about the conditions of these, but we ought to 
do it in a very civil and appropriate way. There ought not to be any 
name calling on either side of the aisle. The American people expect 
that of this body.
  In closing, Madam President, I cannot think of any policy that is 
more important for our working families than to try to get this burden 
down to a more rational level. If you ask all our families, it does not 
matter what walk of life they come from, what their income strata is, 
their education, they all say that the appropriate tax burden should be 
about 25 percent. It is double that. And so I think Senator Dole's 
suggestion that we ought to pass a little relief back to those family 
checking accounts makes every bit of sense.
  Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that in the intervening time 
on the schedule, the Senator from Minnesota be added to the end of our 
time. I think it will take us until about 2:17, or something like that.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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