Paul Ryan

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 1104, currently under consideration.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Roskam), the chairman of the Oversight Subcommittee and the author of this bill for the purpose of describing his bill.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on H.R. 1058, currently under consideration.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, today is tax day. We are bringing to the floor today a number of bills aimed at one thing, recognizing the fact that the IRS works for the taxpayer, not the other way around. It is their job in the Internal Revenue Service to make paying your taxes as easy as possible. This marks the day that most Americans are sending their taxes in; but just ask any of these Americans who probably went to the mailbox today if it is getting any easier, ask them if the IRS is making it easier for them to fill out their forms to do their civic duty. They will tell you that it is clearly not how the IRS is working today. We have learned a lot. We have conducted rigorous oversight, led by Mr. Roskam here, into the Internal Revenue Service, into how they operate. We have learned all too well that bureaucracies don't always do what is efficient; they do what is convenient--at least what is convenient for them. What we are doing is telling the IRS that they are going to have to clean up their act. We are saying that we think most of these bills are common sense, and we are saying that it is pretty much simple, like don't target people because of their political beliefs, don't tax donations to tax-exempt groups, don't send taxpayer information to your private email--simple stuff, things that citizens should automatically expect from the Internal Revenue Service but have not been getting lately. That is why we are bringing these bills to the floor. It is so that we can put the taxpayer in front, so that we can put the taxpayer first, so that we can realign the balance so that the Internal Revenue Service, like any other government agency, works for the taxpayer and not the other way around. I want to make one more point. All of this confusion, all of this unfairness, and all of this frustration that we are sensing and that we see on tax day is because our Tax Code is an absolute mess. It is way too complicated. It punishes people for saving; it punishes people for investing; it punishes people for working--all of the things that we need in order to build a healthy economy. It is going in the wrong direction. We need to make our Tax Code simpler. We need to make it fairer. We need to make it easier for people to comply with. We need to make it flatter. We need to make it more internationally competitive. We need to make it so that it can help our economy heal and grow more jobs. We think these bills are the right bills to put the taxpayers back in the driver's seat, to reassert their rights. I just want to say how proud I am of the members of our committee--of Mr. Roskam, of Mr. Marchant, of Mr. Meehan, of Mr. Holding, of Mr. Renacci, of Mr. Kelly--who all were involved in doing vigorous oversight of this government agency, who found problems, and who have acted on behalf of hard-working taxpayers to right these wrongs and to make sure that they don't happen again. With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Roskam), the author of H.R. 1058, the chairman of the Oversight Committee, the person who is in charge of our investigation and who is a member of the Ways and Means Committee.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Roskam).

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1152) to prohibit officers and employees of the Internal Revenue Service from using personal email accounts to conduct official business, as amended.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Roskam), the chairman of the subcommittee.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Marchant) for the purpose of closing.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1026) to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to permit the release of information regarding the status of certain investigations, as amended.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 1026, currently under consideration.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. At this time, I would like to thank Mr. Kelly, a member of the Ways and Means Committee, along with the minority ranking member for their diligence in uncovering this problem also. You are seeing a theme here, Mr. Speaker, which is both the Republican and Democratic side of the Ways and Means Committee in conducting oversight saw abuses that needed to be fixed. We are fixing these abuses so that they can't happen again, in this statute. For the purpose of describing this particular legislation, I would like to yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Kelly), the author of the bill.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining on each side, please?

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 4 minutes. This one, this case, really boils my blood. Let me just try and describe in a simple way what Mr. Kelly is fixing here and what happened to honest, hard-working taxpayers in America in this case. There is an organization that is a nonprofit organization advocating freely in our free speech society for their view on a cause--I won't even say what cause it is--advocating for their view, a charitable nonprofit. The Internal Revenue Service took their confidential filing and list of their donors to their cause, and the Internal Revenue Service broke the law and leaked it to an outside individual not with the Internal Revenue Service. This list of donors to this cause went out on the Internet. It was released to the public by the opponents of this cause. Guess what happened. The people who confidentially, privately donated--exercising their free speech rights to advocate for a cause-- found themselves intimidated, found themselves harassed because their personal, private information had been released by the IRS to the public. This organization asked the Internal Revenue Service: What just happened? How did this private document with the private information of our donors to our cause get out there on the Internet and hosted on the page by our opponents of our cause? The Internal Revenue Service in turn said: We can't answer your question. The advocates of the cause, trying to defend the privacy of their donors--a free speech right--said: Well, are you investigating this? Are you looking into this? Are you holding somebody responsible? Is there an investigation into how this private information got out on the Internet? They said: We can't answer that question. Unbelievable--that is not freedom; that is not liberty. That is not how this IRS will ever act again if we have any say-so over this. That is why Mr. Kelly is writing this bill, to make sure that people's privacy is protected and that it is not leaked to the public or to the opponents of a cause that they care about. I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Roskam), the chairman of the subcommittee.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Kelly) for the purpose of closing.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1314) to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide for a right to an administrative appeal relating to adverse determinations of tax-exempt status of certain organizations, as amended.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 1314, currently under consideration.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Meehan) for his work in crafting this legislation and for bringing it to the floor. This, too, is one of the important things that we needed to do to restore some trust and confidence and accountability at the Internal Revenue Service. For the purpose of describing the legislation, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Meehan).

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Meehan) for the purpose of closing.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Roskam), the chairman of the subcommittee.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Holding) for the purpose of closing on his bill.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 709) to provide for the termination of employment of employees of the Internal Revenue Service who take certain official actions for political purposes, as amended.