Republican investigators disagreed, defending the job done by the
Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) last year
in reviewing the IRS' handling of tax-exemption applications
received from political groups.
A starkly split 222-page report from the Senate Permanent
Subcommittee on Investigations displayed continued partisan discord
over an affair that burst into view in May 2013 and quickly enmeshed
the IRS in its worst scandal in decades.
Last year's controversy stemmed from allegations that IRS agents had
singled out applications for tax-exempt status from the Tea Party
movement and other conservative groups for extra scrutiny. When a
senior IRS executive apologized over the issue, a furor ensued that
led to the resignation of the chief of the IRS and multiple
investigations and congressional hearings.
Separately on Friday, the IRS acknowledged that it had discovered
the loss of more related employee emails from the 2009-2014 period
being probed by Republican congressional investigators, according to
a letter sent to them by the agency.
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Obtained by Reuters, the letter said emails for five current or
former IRS employees had been lost in a computer crash. The agency
earlier this year said it had lost many emails by a former senior
IRS executive, triggering another round of congressional hearings.
"The IRS has determined that five of the employees had hard-drive
issues that resulted in a probable loss of emails," IRS Commissioner
John Koskinen said in a statement on Friday.
He said the IRS had salvaged 14,000 potentially relevant emails from
those lost. "The IRS has found no evidence that any IRS personnel
deliberately destroyed any evidence," he said.
In the Senate subcommittee report, Democrats said IRS staffers
reviewing tax-exemption applications subjected both conservative and
liberal groups to extra scrutiny, while Republicans complained
conservatives got worse IRS treatment.
Democrats singled out TIGTA for harsh criticism. The independent
watchdog is headed by J. Russell George, a lawyer nominated by
former Republican President George W. Bush and confirmed by the
Senate in November 2004.
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Days after the IRS targeting program for tax-exemption applications
erupted into view, TIGTA issued an audit report that had been
underway for months on the IRS' conduct.
The report focused chiefly on conservative groups and said that
"inappropriate criteria" were used by the IRS for selecting
applications for closer, lengthier review.
TIGTA's George said in an emailed statement that he was reviewing
the subcommittee report. "I firmly stand behind the audit report
that we issued last year," he said.
Senate subcommittee Democrats said TIGTA left out of its audit
report that both conservative and liberal groups were mistreated by
IRS agents, and that TIGTA investigators, in early inquiries, found
no indications of political bias at the IRS.
In their section of the report, Republicans said TIGTA's audit was
valid and "adequately covered the relevant material."
(Reporting by Kevin Drawbaugh; Editing by Tom Brown and Lisa
Shumaker)
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