Congress committee grills ousted tax chief

Lawmakers questioned the ousted head of the Internal Revenue Service as Congress held its first hearing on the tougher scrutiny the federal tax agency gave tea party and other conservative groups that applied for tax-exempt status.

With the scandal joining the parade of political headaches buffeting President Barack Obama, a Republican-run congressional committee planned to question the agency's ousted chief, Steven Miller, today.

Republicans have spent the past few days trying to link the IRS' improper scrutiny of conservatives to Obama. The president has said he didn't know about the targeting until last Friday, when the official who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups acknowledged at a legal conference that conservative groups had been singled out, said it was wrong and apologised.
 

Even so, less than four months into his second term, the president has been on the defensive for the IRS controversy, along with questions about last September's attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed the US ambassador and three other Americans, and the government's seizure of The Associated Press' telephone records as part of a leaks investigation.

Members of both parties have spent the past week bitterly chastising the agency for abandoning its charge of making nonpolitical decisions about which groups should qualify for tax-exempt status, which makes it easier for them to collect contributions from donors.

Miller, acting director until he resigned Wednesday, got a hostile reception from the chairman of the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee, who said the scandal seems to be part of a culture of cover-ups and political intimidation by the Obama administration.

Republican Dave Camp's remarks got a strong rebuke from the panel's top Democrat, Congressman Sander Levin, who warned that the hearing shouldn't be aimed at scoring points for election campaigns.

In a prepared statement, Miller said problems arose from a screening system agency workers set up to deal with a growing caseload of groups seeking tax-exempt status. Miller said it was not due to "any political or partisan viewpoint."

He said that the IRS has instituted new processes designed to prevent the problem from occurring again.

Lawmakers also have said that despite asking the IRS repeatedly about complaints from conservative groups that their applications were being treated unfairly, the agency, including Miller, never told them the groups were being targeted, even after May 2012, when the agency said Miller was briefed on the practice. Miller was previously a deputy commissioner whose portfolio included the unit that made decisions about tax-exempt status.