Bill Pascrell: “I am proud to be a cosponsor of H.R. 3209, the Recovering Missing Children Act. I thank my friend, Representative Erik…”

“I am proud to be a cosponsor of H.R. 3209, the Recovering Missing Children Act. I thank my friend, Representative Erik Paulsen, for introducing it. It is strong, it is reasonable, and it is the right thing to do. Representative Joe Courtney has waited and worked for this legislation for a long time. As a father and a grandfather, I can't even begin to imagine what parents go through in the event their child goes missing. I can't imagine it. I really can't. And I certainly can't imagine hearing that law enforcement is handicapped in its ability to do everything possible to help bring their child back. Mr. Speaker, there are 200,000 kids that are abducted by a family member every year. That is something for another day perhaps, but it is part of this problem here. In 2007, a study by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, TIGTA--we use that term a lot in the Ways and Means Committee--found that tax return information could be helpful in many cases involving missing children. TIGTA reviewed whether IRS data would show addresses for persons claiming tax benefits with respect to those missing children after the time of the abduction or their suspected abductors. That sounds pretty bizarre, but that is happening. TIGTA looked at 520 missing children's cases and found that the IRS data showed new addresses for 46 percent of the cases.…”