Steve Stockman Trolls IRS With ‘The Dog Ate My Tax Receipts Act’

Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX) speaks on Fox News in July 2013.
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Ultraconservative Rep. Steve Stockman wants to leave Congress in a blaze of trolling glory.

The Texas Republican, who lost his Senate bid this year, has introduced legislation aimed at mocking the IRS for losing thousands of emails requested by investigators in Congress. (The agency said the emails were destroyed because hard drives crashed.) The bill lets Americans off the hook for failing to hand over documents requested in tax audits if they claim such as excuses as “[t]he dog ate my tax receipts” and “[a]t this point, what difference does it make?”

Here’s the list of plausible excuses under “The Dog Ate My Tax Receipts Act”:

1. The dog ate my tax receipts

2. Convenient, unexplained, miscellaneous computer malfunction

3. Traded documents for five terrorists

4. Burned for warmth while lost in the Yukon

5. Left on table in Hillary’s Book Room

6. Received water damage in the trunk of Ted Kennedy’s car

7. Forgot in gun case sold to Mexican drug lords

8. Forced to recycle by municipal Green Czar

9. Was short on toilet paper while camping

10. At this point, what difference does it make?

“Taxpayers should be allowed to offer the same flimsy, obviously made-up excuses the Obama administration uses,” Stockman said in a statement.

The IRS has faced criticism for its record-keeping failure. “It’s hard to think of a federal agency that is less forgiving about record keeping. If you are audited, the IRS wants you to move fast,” wrote Slate’s John Dickerson. “Not only do you have to keep your records for years, as [Paul] Ryan says, but the IRS wants you to move quick like a bunny. And the entire process has one subliminal message to it: ‘I don’t believe you.'”

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