Finance Committee to Review IRS Report in Closed Session

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The Senate Finance Committee today voted to hold an upcoming executive session, which is required to be closed, to review findings from the Committee’s bipartisan investigation into the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) treatment of organizations applying for tax-exempt status and discuss release of the final report. In the closed session, as required by law, members will be briefed by Committee staff with 6103 authority to review private taxpayer information. This vote follows the completion of the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) investigation into the cause of Lois Lerner’s hard drive crash, and TIGTA’s efforts to recover any emails that may have been lost as a result of the crash.”

“With TIGTA’s investigation completed, we are now able to move forward with the Committee’s bipartisan report into the IRS’s treatment of tax-exempt organizations,” Hatch and Wyden said. “Throughout this process, we have been committed to ensuring a complete and thorough investigation, and this closed session will give members an opportunity to review our findings and vote to submit the report to the full Senate if they choose.” 

The date for the closed session has not been announced but is expected to occur before the Senate breaks for the August state work period.

BACKGROUND

On May 20, 2013, the leaders of the Senate Finance Committee sent a detailed, 41-question document request to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) seeking information about the alleged targeting by the IRS of certain social welfare organizations applying for tax-exempt status based on those organizations’ presumed political activities. That letter marked the beginning of a bipartisan investigation by the Committee into the IRS’ activities related to the review of tax-exempt applications and related issues raised by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) in his May 14, 2013, report. 

To date, Committee investigators have interviewed more than 30 current and former IRS and Treasury employees and have reviewed nearly 1.5 million pages of documents. In June 2014, the Committee learned that the IRS was not able to produce all emails originating from Lois Lerner and other IRS officials needed to complete the Senate Finance Committee investigation. As a result, Chairman Hatch and Ranking Member Wyden asked TIGTA to investigate the matter. Specifically, TIGTA looked into: 1) what records the IRS lost; 2) if there was any attempt to deliberately destroy records, or otherwise impede congressional and federal investigations; and 3) whether any of the missing information can be recovered.

TIGTA provided their findings to the Committee on June 30, 2015.

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