Grassley Presses Werfel to Listen to IRS Whistleblowers after Learning Their Meeting Requests Have Gone Unanswered

Grassley Presses Werfel to Listen to IRS Whistleblowers after Learning Their Meeting Requests Have Gone Unanswered

IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel testifies before Senate Finance Committee

WASHINGTON - Upon learning two IRS whistleblowers have been unsuccessful in securing a sit-down with agency leadership, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) took today's Senate Finance Committee hearing as an opportunity to urge Commissioner Daniel Werfel to finally accept their meeting requests.

"I know [IRS Supervisory Special Agent Gary Shapley and Special Agent Joseph Ziegler] asked to meet with you. […] I would assume they want to tell you what's wrong within the handling of certain cases. I would think you, at the top of the IRS, would want to listen to them.

"I'm going to do now what I told them I would do: I was going to ask you to meet with the two of them and just listen to them. Whether you take action or not is up to you, but I think you ought to at least listen to them. I think whistleblowers throughout government are some of the most patriotic people I know, and I would ask you to do that."

Grassley then asked about the IRS Whistleblower Program he shepherded through Congress, which, to date, has recouped over $6 billion for the taxpayer. He also pressed Werfel on the steps IRS is taking to better safeguard taxpayers' sensitive data. Full video is below, followed by subject-specific excerpts from Grassley's questioning.

VIDEO

Addressing Whistleblower Program Backlogs:

"[...T]he average wait time for people to get their case closed has gotten longer and is now up to 10 years. The long average wait time is in part due to the IRS policy against paying partial awards. Under this policy, the IRS will wait years until all years of a claim are completed to pay anything whatsoever. Effectively, the IRS has created barriers to paying awards on its own that are not in the Whistleblower statute passed by Congress.

"You need to examine the unnecessary policy in the IRS Revenue Manual and work to allow partial awards to be paid to whistleblowers as quickly as possible. Could you do that?"

Werfel characterized Grassley's concern as a "very high priority."

Protecting Taxpayer Information:

"How was an activist with plans to steal taxpayer information able to get hired and gain access to taxpayer information? What actions is the IRS taking to ensure an activist employee or contractor is never again able to access and share sensitive taxpayer information?"

In response, Werfel recited IRS' to-do list for bolstering data security. The commissioner added, "All of this is ongoing and put in place to make sure this type of unauthorized access by a contractor or an IRS employee can never happen again. […] Unauthorized access from insider threats, it's impossible to get rid of completely. But I'm committed to reducing the probability to as small as it can be by putting in the sweat equity to close all those gaps."

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