WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government, today chaired a hearing to review the administration’s budget request for the Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). During questioning, Senator Capito spoke with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen and Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration Russell George about a number of priorities important to West Virginia, including the importance of community banks and the work of the Bureau of the Fiscal Service in Parkersburg.
Watch a video of Senator Capito’s opening marks here or by clicking the image above. A PDF of her remarks is available here.
For a video of her questions for Secretary Mnuchin, click here, and for a video of her questions for Commissioner Koskinen and Inspector General George, click here.
Opening remarks as prepared for delivery:
The Department of the Treasury has an important mission. Its work to promote economic growth and stability and safeguard our financial system is critical to maintaining a strong economy and creating economic opportunity. Equally important is its work to combat terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, money laundering, drug trafficking and other national security threats.
The Internal Revenue Service has the significant role of administering our nation’s tax laws. To carry out those responsibilities effectively, taxpayers must have faith that the IRS will do its job without regard to an individual’s exercise of their constitutional rights.
The IRS must also protect taxpayers’ personal information and privacy. As the IRS continues to evolve and make changes in its service delivery systems, there must be improvements in its ability to manage that change without adversely impacting taxpayers or compromising their personal information.
We look forward to hearing from all of our witnesses about the details of your budget requests, as well as your plans to address cyber security threats and vulnerabilities within Treasury and in our nation’s financial sector. In addition, we also want to learn more about Treasury’s plans to take a comprehensive approach to regulatory relief. Hopefully, those efforts will help spur economic growth and job creation.
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