The Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government will come to order.
I’d like to welcome IRS Commissioner Werfel. This is the first time you have appeared before the subcommittee, and we look forward to discussing the IRS’s Fiscal Year 2025 budget submission.
This is also my first hearing as Chairman of this subcommittee, and I look forward to conducting oversight with the agencies under the subcommittee’s jurisdiction whose mission impacts the everyday lives of hardworking Americans in my district and across the nation.
It is my duty to ensure these agencies, including the IRS, do not unfairly target Americans in auditing their taxes, overseeing their participation in the financial markets, and impacting their ability to own and operate a small business.
The Fiscal Year 2025 budget request for the IRS is $12.3 billion dollars—which is equal to the current fiscal year.
However, the IRS is requesting an additional $24 billion in mandatory funds to rebuild an army of IRS agents and carry out a Direct File system that Congress did not authorize, among other enforcement priorities.
The IRS claims that the rescissions enacted as part of the Fiscal Responsibility Act undermine the nation’s financial strength when in fact requesting to reverse that cut on top of an additional $24 billion in mandatory funds does just that.
And while the IRS deserves credit for a successful filing season, it claims it cannot even come close to achieving an 88 percent level of service without additional mandatory funds.
Specifically, Commissioner Werfel has said without additional funds, the level of service on the IRS main phone line could drop back to 30 percent levels in 2026.
It’s worth exploring why the IRS says it cannot deliver a successful filing season with the discretionary funds this subcommittee provides, especially considering that these funds account for almost half of this subcommittee’s allocation.
We need to get back to hearing from the IRS on how it is effectively deploying discretionary resources to improve its modernization efforts and better secure taxpayer data.
I’d also like to hear from the IRS on how the Administration is complying with their pledge that taxpayers with incomes under $400,000 are not experiencing an increase in audit activity by the IRS. They have enough to worry about amidst higher grocery, rent, and utility bills.
It is our job as appropriators to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars and ensure for the American people that the agencies under our jurisdiction are not wasting money by supporting bad policies that fail to achieve the desired outcomes.
I’ll now turn to my friend and our Ranking Member, Mr. Hoyer, for his opening remarks.
