Acting IRS chief Steven Miller on Friday apologized to Congress for “foolish mistakes” the IRS made as he testified before the House Ways & Means Committee at a hearing into the agency scandal for targeting conservative groups.
“First and foremost, as acting commissioner I want to apologize on behalf of the Internal Revenue Service for the mistakes we made and poor services we provided,” Miller said. “The American public deserves better. Partisanship or the perception of partsisanship has no place in the IRS. It can’t even appear to have a role in determining tax exempt status in the organization.”
“I don’t believe politics motivated the people engaged in the Treasury inspector general’s report. I believe its conclusions are consistent with what I think what happened here — foolish mistakes were made by people trying to be more efficient in their workload selection.”
Miller underscored that the mistake was not “an act of partisanship” and insisted that the agency has learned its lesson.
“The listing described in the report while intolerable was a mistake. And not an act of partisanship,” he said. “The agency is moving forward. It has learned its lesson. We have previously worked to correct issues in the processing described in the report and implemented changes to make sure this type of thing never happens again. We have completed fact finding and issues a report. We will take appropriate action. I will be happy to answer your questions.”
Read Miller’s full testimony here.
