May 25,2007

Grassley: IRS Needs to do Better Job of Screening Tax-Exempt Groups for Terrorist Links

Sen. Chuck Grassley, ranking member of the Committee on Finance, today made the following comment on a new report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration on the IRS’ efforts to screen tax-exempt organizations’ filing information for potential terrorist- related financing. The report is 2007-10-082.

“The report is disappointing. The IRS has to do better. The agency isn’t even checking a list available to all government agencies. Once again, the IRS is a day late and a dollar short on keeping up with the latest technology. It’s incredible that employees are manually doing work that computers have been doing for the last 20 years. This is a wasted opportunity. Everyone agrees that cutting off financing is a big part of undermining terrorist groups. It’s good the IRS has agreed to fix this situation, and I look forward to learning when we can expect that fix.”

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