Should Government Entities Follow The Law All The Time? IRS Doesn't Think So!

Commissioner Koskinen Says IRS Tries To Follow The Law ‘Whenever We Can’

September 10, 2014 by Ben Bullard 

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Take comfort in knowing that, just as you only try to follow federal tax law “whenever you can,” the agency that collects and enforces those same laws is right there with you.

What? You always follow federal tax law because you don’t have much of a choice? Never mind then – the IRS hasn’t got anything in common with you.

At a House Ways and Means subcommittee hearing today, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen told the panel the IRS sometimes does what the law prescribes. “Whenever we can, we follow the law,” said Koskinen, prompting a quick retort from Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas), according to The Hill: ““I encourage you to follow the law in all instances.”

Koskinen’s remarks came amid a barrage of questions about how the IRS will manage to ensure that everyone who’s required to report their health care coverage information to the agency this tax season will provide accurate information. It’s a crucial point: the Obama administration has missed the mark repeatedly in assurances about deadlines, premium costs, the security of patient information and the expediency of incorporating insurance verification into the annual tax-filing gauntlet.

Healthcare.gov’s Andy Slavitt faced questions about such concerns, with House members pointing out the website was recently reported to have been hacked – just one of several serious rollout failings that have engendered, in Slavitt’s own words, a “trust gap” between Congressional overseers and the public on one hand, and the Obama administration on the other.

Wednesday’s hearing came only a few days after another potential IRS scandal-within-a-scandal emerged, when a DOJ spokesman reportedly called Rep. Darrell Issa’s (R-Calif.) office by mistake in an attempt to drum up some help on how to continue shaping the IRS narrative in its ongoing political discrimination scandal involving conservative nonprofits. Issa is chair of the house Oversight Committee, which has an ongoing investigation into the scandal.

“Apparently thinking he had reached the office of Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings (Md.) [Cummings is on the House Oversight Committee], [DOJ spokesman Brian] Fallon said the department wanted congressional staffers to get documents to selected reporters so that officials could comment on them ‘before the majority’ did,” The Hill reported Tuesday.

“After Issa spokesman Frederick Hill replied that Oversight Committee staffers would have to examine those documents first, the line went silent, and Fallon placed the call on hold for three minutes.

“When he returned to the line, Fallon was ‘audibly shaken,’ according to an account of the conversation that Issa recounts in a letter sent to [Attorney General Eric] Holder.”

You can read the letter Issa sent to Holder following that incident here.