Peter Roskam: “The gentleman from New York asked a provocative question. Here is why you don't want this type of capacity in the hands…”

“The gentleman from New York asked a provocative question. Here is why you don't want this type of capacity in the hands of the IRS, I would say, and it is this reason: there is a fundamental lack of trust. The IRS has run roughshod over people's freedoms in the past. The Commissioner himself has said: I don't need this information. We don't need this information. There are other entities--that is, the Federal Election Commission, the Bank Secrecy Act, and so forth--that are in place that are protections against foreign influence. But, basically, the IRS--and based on the work that the committee has done-- I would argue, we have seen where the IRS has not treated these things well. So go back to a case that is famous, a case from years ago, a case during the civil rights movement, where the NAACP was told: You have to disclose your donor information. How absurd. How ridiculous. How unconstitutional, in fact, that was. We are not at the same threshold, I would submit, as the NAACP case, but I would suggest that there is something untoward about an agency here--the Internal Revenue Service--that has what? Power to take things away, power to put people in prison. And you are giving them information that they have squandered and abused in that past.”