Two House Republican lawmakers submitted a letter to the Internal Revenue Service on Monday inquiring as to why the agency destroyed approximately 30 million taxpayer documents over two years ago.
Reps. Jason Smith (R-MO), chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, and David Schweikert (R-AZ), chairman of the Oversight Subcommittee, wrote to IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel, asking him to submit documentation that authorized the decision. The letter demanded Werfel comply with the documentation request after the agency “willfully ignored” the committee’s initial inquiry last year, the Center Square reported.
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The most recent letter comes over a year after a Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration report showed that the IRS destroyed about 30 million “unprocessed, paper-filed information returns” in 2021. Taxpayers may have needed those documents if their taxes were to be audited, which is likely given the Biden administration’s push for increased auditing in the last year.
“The decision to destroy information returns diligently prepared by millions of American taxpayers demands congressional oversight,” the letter read. “The destruction of these returns raises the question of whether information reporting should be scaled back to reduce the burden placed on taxpayers in reporting information the IRS does not even use.”
Smith and Schweikert also criticized the Biden-era IRS for not complying with the House oversight investigation.
“The Biden administration’s refusal to respond to the Committee, engage in a substantive discussion with staff about the request, and ultimately deny access to the decision memorandum obstructs Congress’s ability to conduct our important oversight responsibilities,” the letter added.
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The written inquiry gave Werfel until Aug. 8 to respond. The IRS did not answer the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
The IRS inquiry comes as the federal tax agency is facing multiple issues over alleged politicization and its home visit policy, which was last updated Monday.