Rob Portman: “Mr. Speaker, I rise today in part to remind us as to where we are in this process. Yesterday we talked about the…”

“Mr. Speaker, I rise today in part to remind us as to where we are in this process. Yesterday we talked about the underlying legislation, which is a very good combination of taxpayer protections and health care protections for workers. I think it would be helpful to start by reviewing that, only because I think by adding this substitute, we would jeopardize so many of those good provisions. Yesterday, we talked a little about the importance of moving quickly on those provisions. After all, these are the result of over 2 years of work by the Taxpayer Advocate, by the Internal Revenue Service, by the Treasury Department itself, and by the Committee on Ways and Means, based on oversight hearings, to basically strengthen and protect the rights of average, honest taxpayers. Let me give you an example of some the things in the underlying legislation. It prohibits IRS employees from unauthorized browsing of tax returns. We do have a series of prohibitions in the Code. This is not one of them. It would now make browsing of your tax return or mine part of those prohibitions. This is very important, and, again, it is based on good testimony we have had from the IRS and some obvious problems that have resulted from unauthorized browsing. It also simplifies tax filing in a number of ways.”