William Bryan: “Mr. President, April 15, the day on which we pay our annual tribute to the IRS, will never be one of the happiest days…”

“Mr. President, April 15, the day on which we pay our annual tribute to the IRS, will never be one of the happiest days on the calendar for Americans. It is a time in which all of us are required to pay that which we owe to the Federal Government by way of the tax system that we, as Members of the Congress, have imposed upon the American people. We have heard in the past few days a number of the abuses that have been foisted upon the American public, and I will speak to those issues in more detail in a moment. In the meantime, we have an opportunity to pass a reform and restructuring piece of legislation which, as a member of the Senate Finance Committee, I am pleased to support and endorse, and I hope we can get this to the President for his signature as soon as possible. Many of us believe that it would have been possible to have passed this legislation last year so that the benefits that are provided in this legislation to the American taxpayer could have been available in the early part of this year before this year's tax collections went into effect. Nevertheless, we do have an opportunity to move forward on this important piece of legislation. Reform of the IRS is not a partisan issue. In my judgment, by acting quickly on this legislation, we can provide some much-needed protections and service improvements to the American taxpayers.”