White House Opposes IRS Reform Bills

The White House Office of Management and Budget released a statement this week in which it took issue with three House bills designed to reform personnel policy at the IRS.

The White House issued a statement this week voicing strong opposition to several bills that would make personnel policy reforms at the IRS.

The three bills the Obama Administration took issue with are:

  • Ensuring Integrity in the IRS Workforce Act of 2015 (H.R. 3724) – this bill would prohibit the IRS from rehiring employees who had been fired for misconduct.
  • The IRS Bonuses Tied to Measurable Metrics (H.R. 4890) prohibits the IRS from paying bonuses to employees until the Secretary of the Treasury develops and implements a comprehensive customer service strategy.
  • The No Hires for the Delinquent IRS Act (H.R. 1206) suspends the hiring of new IRS employees unless the Treasury Secretary certifies that no IRS employees have serious delinquencies with respect to their own tax obligations.

The OMB memo said, “These bills would impose unnecessary constraints on the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) operations without improving the agency’s ability to administer the tax code and serve taxpayers.”

The memo goes into more detail on why the Obama Administration believes the bills are unnecessary, however, it’s a pretty safe bet that if the bills were to pass through Congress, they would be vetoed by the president.

About the Author

Ian Smith is one of the co-founders of FedSmith.com. He has over 20 years of combined experience in media and government services, having worked at two government contracting firms and an online news and web development company prior to his current role at FedSmith.