By Eric Stock
WASHINGTON – U.S. Rep. Darin LaHood said cybersecurity is a major problem and the Internal Revenue Service has been asleep at the switch.
LaHood told WJBC’s Scott Laughlin that’s why he has backed a series of measures intended to bring more accountability to the agency.
PODCAST: Listen to Scott’s interview with LaHood on WJBC.
He noted that 700,000 Americans have had their personal information compromised after using IRS websites.
“If they can’t do it the right way, let’s bring in the private sector to do this,” LaHood said. “They deal with it all the time. Banks deal with it. Lots of tech companies deal with it. There’s a whole cottage industry out there that does this kind of stuff.”
Two of the measures are being fast-tracked in the Senate. One would prevent the IRS from hiring new employees who have been delinquent in paying their taxes. Another would block the IRS from spending user fees without Congressional approval.
Lahood noted the IRS sent out $46 million in potentially fraudulent tax refunds due to a computer program error and has a history of awarding bonuses and hiring employees who themselves are delinquent on their taxes.
“We need to give confidence to the American people that we are fixing some of these things,” LaHood said.
Eric Stock can be reached at [email protected].
