On the recordApril 18, 2018
I want to thank Chairman Jenkins and Ranking Member Lewis for their work on this, and I am pleased that the underlying bill includes the RESPECT Act, which deals with civil asset forfeiture abuses by the Internal Revenue Service, and I strongly urge the other body to take this up. Mr. Speaker, I want to pick up on one of the themes that the gentlewoman from California just mentioned--the Free File Program--and explain why it is important. She mentioned a decentralized program which makes all of the sense in the world. She mentioned a level of predictability that makes all the sense in the world. There are opponents to this, however, and I just scratch my head. There are some fringe groups that have said: Oh, no, no, no, that is a bad idea. Instead, what they are proposing is this: that the Internal Revenue Service fills out your tax returns; that the Internal Revenue Service acts as judge, jury, and executioner. That is a terrible idea. It is called ReadyReturn. It is a disaster. We ought not do that. Instead, as the gentlewoman from California said, let's do this program. It saves untold sums of money. It is a great benefit to modest taxpayers--those who are earning less than $66,000 in their adjusted gross income--and it also puts the onus on the private sector to actively participate in this process. So in a nutshell, this is a good bill. It is well thought out. It is bipartisan. It has been well crafted and well contemplated, and I urge its passage.
