Domestic Taxes

Joseph Grant, the acting commissioner for the agency's tax-exempt and government entities division, plans to retire.

Danny Werfel has served as acting deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget.

The director of the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) Exempt Organization's Division has decided not to deliver the commencement speech at Western New England University Law School on Saturday.

A group of Senate Republicans is pushing a Treasury inspector general to investigate what they call the “likely illegal” disclosure of tax records to a news organization, a sign that the GOP is looking to deepen its investigation into the agency.

The investigative group ProPublica announced this week that the IRS released to them the pending applications of nine conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status – six of which, Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee say, were published on the group’s website.

According to the letter from the Finance Republicans, the IRS code only authorizes the agency to release already approved applications.

The lawmakers are asking Treasury’s inspector general for tax administration – which released the report this week that documented the IRS singling out of conservative groups – to investigate.

“Together, the IRS’s recent actions have at least the appearance of injecting partisan politics into what is supposed to be an impartial process and causes us, and the American public, to question the integrity of the IRS administration and their ability to impartially uphold the nation’s tax laws,” the senators wrote to the inspector general, Russell George.

Conservative lawmakers unsatisfied with the resignation of acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller are weighing whether a special prosecutor needs to be called in to look into political targeting by the Internal Revenue Service. 

House Tea Party Caucus head Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) said the IRS cannot be trusted to police itself, and the Department of Justice has a credibility problem. As a result, an outside investigation should be considered, she said.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) promised on Wednesday to lower state income taxes if Congress approves online sales tax legislation.

In a letter to the state's members of Congress, Walker said the Wisconsin Department of Revenue estimates that the online sales tax bill would bring in $95 million in additional state revenue every year.

"I want to make clear, should federal Marketplace legislation become law, my intention would be for any resulting additional revenue be used to provide individual income tax relief for Wisconsin’s taxpayers," Walker wrote.

The new commissioner will replace Steven Miller, who resigned Wednesday amid the fallout over the targeting of conservative groups.

At least 17 groups are preparing lawsuits over the agency's improper targeting of conservative organizations. 

Congressional Democrats on Wednesday applauded President Obama’s move to force out the acting Internal Revenue Service (IRS) commissioner, while Republicans on Capitol Hill signaled that they were far from done investigating the agency’s targeting of conservative groups.

Steven Miller, the acting chief, became the first agency official to lose his or her job over the IRS’s singling out of Tea Party groups seeking tax-exempt status, with the 25-year IRS employee now set to leave the agency in June.

Speaking at the White House, Obama said Miller’s resignation would help restore confidence at the embattled agency, whose actions have also put the administration on its heels.

Miller’s resignation comes one day after a Treasury inspector general report found ineffective management at the agency, leading staffers to seek unnecessary information like donor lists from conservative groups seeking 501(c)(4) status and often delaying the application process.

Steven Miller becomes the first IRS official to lose job in the uproar over the targeting of conservative groups.