Washington, DC – Today, Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Charles Boustany Jr., M.D. (R-LA) wrote to Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Acting Commissioner  Steven Miller to find out how much taxpayer money will be used to implement the Democrats’ health care law and how many IRS employees have been pulled away from the agency’s core mission to work on it.  The IRS will be in charge of administering the health law, including overseeing the more than $1 trillion in tax hikes and major provisions of the law such as the individual mandate.
 
Specifically, Chairman Boustany requested the agency provide information on how much staff the IRS must hire and detail how much money will be allocated in order to implement the law.  Previously, the IRS estimated that it would need to dedicate nearly 1,300 full-time employees to the effort by September 30, 2012 and another 895 by the end of fiscal year 2013.  However, according to previous reports from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, these eye-popping numbers appear to have been significantly understated and called the IRS staffing estimate unreliable because it was not backed up by any meaningful analysis or documentation.  The GAO report also found that the IRS did not have adequate processes in place to accurately review and account for the taxpayer dollars the IRS are spending to implement the controversial law.
 
The requests made in the letter are also in response to Treasury Secretary Lew’s answers to questions for the record submitted during his Senate Finance confirmation process.
 
The letter can be read here.