A government watchdog group wants a key person at the Internal Revenue Service who was involved in the Obama-era scandal of the agency targeting political opponents to be fired after learning of her new position.
Former IRS Commissioner Lois Lerner’s top deputy, Holly Paz, was promoted by the administration of former President Joe Biden and is now in charge of a key division in the agency, The Daily Caller reported.
She is listed on the IRS website as the commissioner of the agency’s Large Business and International Division.
Paz was reportedly involved in what became known as the “Tea Party” scandal around the time of then-President Obama’s reelection in 2012, where conservative groups who wanted tax-exempt status so they could stump for Republicans were subjected to approval delays and additional scrutiny that was not applied to progressive groups seeking the same status.
The American Accountability Foundation (AAF), a conservative government watchdog group, is demanding that she be removed because of her connections to that scandal, according to a letter sent Thursday to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and obtained by the Daily Caller.
The group “has launched an investigation into the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for issues pertaining to partisanship and its continued targeting of conservatives,” the letter said.
“Our first finding of this investigation is that the former top deputy to Louis Lerner — Holly Paz — regained a high-ranking position within the IRS during the Biden Administration. Paz was placed on leave and ousted from her role at the IRS in 2013 amid allegations she targeted conservative organizations seeking tax-exempt status,” it said.
“With allegations that the IRS maintains political bias and is still targeting conservatives, Paz cannot be allowed to maintain a role in the IRS,” the letter said.`
“Taxpayers deserve to have faith in those that receive a government salary and Paz has proved undeserving of the honor to serve the American public. The American Accountability Foundation will continue to investigate IRS leadership and implores the Trump administration to root out any anti-conservative partisan bias at the IRS,” it said.
The IRS division she currently leads is “responsible for tax administration activities for domestic and foreign businesses with a United States tax reporting requirement and assets equal to or exceeding $10 million as well as the Global High Wealth and International Individual Compliance programs,” the IRS website said.
The tax agency was recently named in another scandal involving the upgrade of its infrastructure.
A technology adviser working for the Elon Musk-run Department of Government Efficiency made a stunning revelation about what he discovered during an appearance with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Fox News.
In an interview with host Laura Ingraham, Sam Corcos, who is working at the IRS to modernize the tax collection agency’s software and computer systems, said that the upgrade is more than three decades behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget — with no resolution yet in sight.
“I’ve been brought in to look at the IRS modernization program, as well as the operations and maintenance budget,” Corcos told Ingraham. “This is a huge program that is already 30 years behind schedule and $15 billion over budget.”
“The IRS has some legacy infrastructure… old mainframes running COBOL and Assembly, and the challenge is how do we make that a modern system? Virtually every bank has done this, but we’re still using a lot of those old systems,” Corcos continued.
“Typically, in industry, this takes a few years and maybe a few hundred million dollars. We’re now 35 years into this… It was supposed to be delivered in 1996,” he added.
“A huge part of our government is collecting taxes. We cannot perform the basic functions of tax collection without paying a toll to all these contractors. We really have to figure out how to get out of this hole. We’re in a really deep hole right now,” Corcos noted further.
Bessent then said that the real issue isn’t with IRS staff but with agency contractors.
“Many of the employees are fantastic. It’s this consultant group. They’re like a boa constrictor. They’re like a python,” Bessent said. “They’ve constricted themselves around our government, and the costs are unbelievable. They’re being passed on to the American taxpayer.”
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