Senate Finance Committee Senior Member Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) told IRS commissioner nominee John Koskinen during a confirmation hearing on Wednesday that the IRS must stay out of politics and overhaul the tax code.
“Given all of the issues with the current tax code, with the IRS’s difficulty in implementing the current system, with fraud rife in a number of programs, and with the huge work load hitting now on Obamacare, and its politically-motivated targeting of non-profit groups, we need to fundamentally re-think the federal tax system,” Roberts said.
Roberts questioned whether the IRS has been asked to do too much to properly carry out its core functions.
“I have zero confidence that the agency (Koskinen is) being asked to lead will be able to take on the Affordable Care Act in an efficient, effective way, or in a way that does not increase the burdens all taxpayers face in dealing with the tax laws,” Roberts said.
Roberts called for an overhaul of the tax code to simplify the system.
“We need to disentangle the tax code from the economy – we need to disengage the tax system as much as possible from economic decision making,” Roberts said. “To do this, I believe that we need to start over to reduce complexity, to make the tax system fairer and less burdensome and to permit our companies to better compete in international markets.”