{"id":1511847,"date":"2022-06-12T01:05:12","date_gmt":"2022-06-12T05:05:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1511847"},"modified":"2022-06-12T01:05:17","modified_gmt":"2022-06-12T05:05:17","slug":"gop-lawmakers-seek-answers-on-irs-destruction-of-millions-of-tax-documents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/gop-lawmakers-seek-answers-on-irs-destruction-of-millions-of-tax-documents\/","title":{"rendered":"GOP Lawmakers Seek Answers on IRS Destruction of Millions of Tax Documents"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fgop-lawmakers-seek-answers-on-irs-destruction-of-millions-of-tax-documents%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1511847&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Two Republican lawmakers, James Comer (R-Ky.), ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, and Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), ranking member of the Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, have written a letter asking the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to explain the destruction of 30 million paper-filed tax documents last year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCommittee Republicans are concerned that the destruction of these documents might slow down already inefficient processing procedures and hurt American taxpayers left unaware that the IRS destroyed documents already entrusted into its care,\u201d the lawmakers wrote, according to the letter shared with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxbusiness.com\/politics\/gop-lawmakers-question-irs-agency-destroyed-30-million-tax-documents\">Fox Business<\/a>. \u201cIt appears that the IRS may now demand that taxpayers provide duplicate copies of information previously destroyed by the IRS.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A report\u00a0(<a href=\"https:\/\/www.treasury.gov\/tigta\/auditreports\/2022reports\/202240036fr.pdf\">pdf<\/a>) released on May 4 by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) stated that the \u201ccontinued inability\u201d of the IRS to process backlogs of paper-filed tax returns led to the agency destroying the estimated 30 million documents in March 2021.<\/p>\n<p>Destroyed documents include IRS forms W-2, 1098, and 1099, which are used to verify taxpayer information such as income. At the time, the IRS insisted that the destruction of the documents had \u201cno negative taxpayer consequences,\u201d since they had been submitted by third parties. The agency also said that no taxpayer was, or would be, subject to any penalty due to this action.<\/p>\n<p>However, Republican lawmakers argue in the letter that the destruction of the documents might make it difficult for the IRS to accurately screen tax returns and might also affect tax audits.<\/p>\n<p>Mace and Comer asked IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig to provide all details regarding the destruction of the documents, the legal authority the IRS relied upon to perform the action, and how the agency plans to integrate recommendations made in the TIGTA audit.<\/p>\n<p>The incident attracted calls for Retting\u2019s resignation from lawmakers such as Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.), who criticized the agency\u2019s response.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe manner by which we are learning about the destruction of unprocessed paperwork is just the latest example of the lackadaisical attitude from Mr. Rettig. This latest revelation adds to the public\u2019s plummeting confidence in our unfair two-tier tax system,\u201d Pascrell <a href=\"https:\/\/pascrell.house.gov\/news\/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=5104\">said<\/a> in a May 13 statement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere needs to be real accountability. President Biden must replace Mr. Rettig immediately and also nominate a Chief Counsel for IRS.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the IRS faced an unprecedented amount of work in the 2021 filing season. The agency kicked off this year with more than 8.4 million unprocessed individual <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/irs-audit-rate-doubles-among-multiple-income-groups-but-remains-historically-low_4510488.html\">tax returns<\/a> and transactions, according to a preliminary report by TIGTA.<\/p>\n<p>Last month, Rettig testified in the Senate that his agency was taking all steps to reduce the backlog by the end of 2022, promising to start next year with a \u201chealthy level\u201d of inventories.<\/p>\n<div class=\"author_wrapper\">\n<div class=\"one_author_block round\">\n<div class=\"top_row\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/author-naveen-athrappully\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Follow<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Naveen Athrappully is a news reporter covering business and world events at The Epoch Times.\n<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two Republican lawmakers, James Comer (R-Ky.), ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, and Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), ranking member of the Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1511847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1511847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1511847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1511847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1511847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1511847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1511847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}