[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 34 (Tuesday, March 24, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H1411-H1412]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    THE TAXPAYER BILL OF RIGHTS III

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fox) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. FOX of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise to bring to the 
attention of my colleagues the importance now of the passing of the 
Taxpayer Bill of Rights III. We know that it was not that long ago the 
Senate Finance Committee had hearings wherein IRS agents, presently 
working for the agency, as well as taxpayers, came forward to talk 
about the problems of abuse, the problems of mom and pop stores being 
levied with fines and with penalties for violations that had not 
occurred, but they had paid them, nonetheless, out of fear of the 
agency going after them, and yet these people do not have attorneys or 
CPAs to help them.
  My Taxpayer Bill of Rights legislation, which has enjoyed bipartisan 
support, is, frankly, a bill that is going to move forward in this 
respect to change the burden of proof to make sure that taxpayers will 
now be presumed innocent, and the Commissioner of the IRS will have the 
burden of proving otherwise, instead of the reverse, the way it is now.
  It also will say, no more quotas for IRS investigations, no more 
quotas for IRS audits, no more fishing expeditions where taxpayers live 
in fear of the IRS, no more random audits, and, more importantly than 
the ones I have already mentioned, the fifth provision of the bill says 
that, in fact, if the IRS is overreaching or causes a legal business or 
individual loss in an unfair way to any constituent, then they would be 
responsible for reimbursing that taxpayer.
  Moreover, there would be whistleblower protection. If in fact an 
individual comes forward to talk about an IRS violation by an agency 
employee or the agency itself, then they will not be audited just out 
of retribution. Moreover, the bill calls for mediators to be provided 
in case someone wants to settle a claim.
  These are all commonsense provisions to make the IRS more taxpayer-

[[Page H1412]]

friendly. We know very well that the employees of the agency work very 
hard to do a good job, but the burden of proof and other items within 
the tax code and within the tax system have made it difficult to have 
anything but an adversarial relationship between the IRS employees and 
the taxpayers they are supposed to work for.
  The fact is out of 100,000 tax employees that the IRS has, there are 
only 43 taxpayer advocates. That is certainly an imbalance there, Mr. 
Speaker, that we need to correct. I know that working with our Senate 
colleagues in a bipartisan fashion, we can make the IRS an agency that 
will be fair to the public while still making sure that taxes are 
collected, but in a fair and responsible way that will make sure that 
the American taxpayer will not be violated in any way, shape, or form.

                          ____________________