IRS commissioner to testify before House panel next week

Internal Revenue Service Commissioner John Koskinen will testify before the House Ways and Means Committee next week as the House gears up for a vote to hold former IRS official Lois Lerner in contempt of Congress.

On Wednesday, Koskinen will appear before the House Ways and Means Committee on a hearing about the 2014 tax filing season and agency operations. Koskinen will likely field questions from lawmakers about the ongoing investigation of whether the IRS targeted conservative nonprofits applying for tax-exempt status. The full House vote to hold Lerner, the former director of the IRS division overseeing tax-exempt organizations, in contempt of Congress could occur that same day.

{mosads}Other issues likely to come up at the hearing include the inspector general report finding that the IRS issued more than $2.8 million in bonuses and rewards to employees with tax problems and the interception of some Americans’ tax refunds for their relatives’ delinquent debts.

Also next week, the House Education and the Workforce Committee will hold a hearing on the recent National Labor Relations Board decision to allow student athletes to unionize.

“The NLRB’s decision represents a radical departure from longstanding federal labor policies,” House Education and the Workforce Committee John Kline (R-Minn.) said in announcing the hearing. “Classifying student athletes as employees threatens to fundamentally alter college sports, as well as reduce education access and opportunity.” 

Meanwhile, the House Foreign Affairs Committee next Thursday will hear testimony from officials at the Departments of State and Treasury on the situation in Ukraine. Daniel Glaser, the assistant secretary of the Treasury Department’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, and Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary of European and Eurasian Affairs at the State Department, will appear before the panel.

Details on these and other hearings are below:

House Education and the Workforce Committee
May 8, “Big Labor on College Campuses: Examining the Consequences of Unionizing Student Athletes”
10 a.m., 2175 Rayburn

House Energy and Commerce Committee
May 7, “PPACA Enrollment and the Insurance Industry”
10:15 a.m., 2123 Rayburn

House Foreign Affairs Committee
– May 8, “Russia’s Destabilization of Ukraine”
10 a.m., 2172 Rayburn

House Homeland Security Committee
– May 8, “Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP): Threat to Critical Infrastructure”
2 p.m., 311 Cannon

House Ways and Means Committee
– May 7, “Hearing on Internal Revenue Service Operations and the 2014 Tax Return Filing Season”
10:30 a.m., 1100 Longworth