Texas Sen. Ted Cruz plans to propose two bills that will protect U.S. citizens from being unfairly targeted by the Internal Revenue Service, a similar legislation that failed to pass last year due to a Democrat-dominated Senate.
Since the Senate is under the control of the GOP this year, the potential 2016 GOP presidential candidate believes the bills, cosponsored by Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA), James Inhofe (R-OK), and David Vitter (R-LA), have a better chance at passage, Bloomberg reported.
Ex-IRS official Lois Lerner, who headed the IRS division, has been accused of processing Tea Party and conservative groups for tax-exempt status improperly before the 2010 and 2012 elections. The IRS improperly delayed dozens of applications for years, according to an internal audit by the agency's inspector general. Documents show that some liberal groups were singled out, too.
"We should all agree the IRS should not be used as a tool for partisan warfare," Cruz said on his website.
"In May, 2013, President Obama declared the IRS's illegal targeting of conservative groups 'intolerable and inexcusable,'" Cruz wrote, "yet to this date no one has been held accountable for it."
"The IRS has no business meddling with the First Amendment rights of Americans. Rather than further stifling free speech, the IRS and the Department of Justice should provide the American people with all the facts surrounding the IRS's targeting of certain organizations based on their political activity," the Republican added.
The first bill, co-sponsored by Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., would forbid the IRS to "willfully act, with the intent to injure, oppress, threaten, intimidate or single out and subject to undue scrutiny for purposes of harassment" any person or organization "based solely or primarily on the political, economic or social positions held" and calls for a fine, up to a 10-year prison sentence or both, Newsmax reported.
The second one would amend the tax code to "prohibit the Department of the Treasury from assigning tax statuses to organizations based on their political beliefs and activities" and turn that power over to the Federal Election Commission.
So eventually, the FEC would be responsible in determining "whether an organization is engaging in political activity, rather than allowing the IRS to continue making that distinction. The IRS should focus on taxation, not on determining what constitutes political activity," Cruz wrote.
During Wednesday' Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing, Attorney General Nominee Loretta Lynch was questioned by Cruz on whether she would appoint an attorney to independently investigate whether the IRS had targeted Americans over their political beliefs.
"Is it consistent with fairly and impartially enforcing the law to have an investigation into abuse of power at the IRS headed by a major Democratic donor?" asked Cruz.
"My view is that the department has career prosecutors who are devoted to the Constitution," said Lynch.
"Would you commit to this committee to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the IRS abuse of power, who at the very least is not a major Obama donor?" stressed Cruz
"My understanding is that the matter has been considered and the matter has been resolved," she responded.
Two weeks ago, Cruz had claimed that the new GOP-led Congress should wield its power to officially shut down the IRS, The Daily Caller reported.
"We need to pass fundamental tax reform making our tax code simpler, flatter, fairer," he said. "And I'll tell you, the single most important tax reform, we should abolish the IRS."
"The last two years have fundamentally changed the dynamics of this debate [on the tax code]," he continued. "As we have seen the weaponization of the IRS, as we have seen the Obama administration using the IRS in a partisan manner to punish its political enemies."
"In my view there is a powerful populist instinct to take the 110,000 employees at the IRS, to padlock the building, and to put all 110,000 of them down on our southern border."
Meanwhile, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, also introduced a new legislation to block the IRS from changing guidelines for tax-exempt status for organizations until the end of 2017, The Hill reported.
"Everyone deserves a fair standard fairly applied, and for too long, the IRS has targeted people because of their political beliefs. This bill will send a clear message. We won't tolerate the agency's shenanigans," Ryan said.
