IRS: TIGTA Update Part II

PURPOSE:

• To focus on the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration’s (TIGTA) findings with respect to Lois Lerner’s recovered e-mails and to examine the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) response to the congressional investigations on the targeting program. 

BACKGROUND:

• From February 2010 to May 2012, the IRS subjected conservative applicants for tax-exempt status to systematic scrutiny and delays. On May 10, 2013, Lois Lerner, former Director of IRS Exempt Organizations, publicly acknowledged the targeting and apologized.
• The Committee requested documents and communications from the IRS to assist in its investigation of the targeting program. The IRS did not cooperate voluntarily and two subpoenas were eventually issued—one to Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew on August 2, 2013, and the second to then-new IRS Commissioner John Koskinen on February 14, 2014. At a hearing on March 26, 2014, Koskinen testified that all Lerner’s e-mails would be provided to the Committee.
• Less than three months later, on June 13, 2014, the IRS informed Congress that it had lost or destroyed almost two years’ worth of e-mails to and from Lerner. On November 21, 2014, TIGTA notified congressional investigators that it located approximately 30,000 of Lerner’s “missing” e-mails. Recently, TIGTA informed the Committee it had recovered as many as 80,000 of Lerner’s e-mails, including duplicates, which were found among hundreds of “disaster recovery tapes” that were used to back up the IRS e-mail system.