{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.young.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/young-senate-finance-republicans-irs-document-destruction-harmed-taxpayers/", "Young, Senate Finance Republicans: IRS Document Destruction Harmed Taxpayers", "2023-09-21", "2023", "2023-09", "Republican", "Senate", "IN", "Todd Young", "Y000064", "www.young.senate.gov", "toddyoung", "https://www.young.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/", "scraper", "WASHINGTON \u2013 Following reports that provide troubling evidence of taxpayers who were directly harmed by the Internal Revenue Service\u2019s (IRS) destruction of 30 million unprocessed tax returns, U.S. Senator Todd Young (R-Ind.) joined Senate Finance Committee Republicans in sending a letter to IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel urging the IRS to provide information on new and previously unanswered questions.\n\n\u201cRecently reported information demonstrates the Internal Revenue Service\u2019s (IRS) March 2021 decision to destroy 30 million unprocessed tax year 2019 taxpayer information returns has indisputably harmed taxpayers,\u201d the senators wrote.\n\n\u201cFor example, one of the recent reports provides troubling evidence of specific taxpayers who were directly harmed by the destruction of these information returns. For these taxpayers, the IRS denied their earned income tax credit (EITC) claim based upon the mistaken belief that the taxpayers had insufficient earned income,\u201d the senators wrote.\n\n\u201cMeanwhile, the IRS still officially maintains that \u2018[t]here were no negative taxpayer consequences as a result of this action\u2019,\u201d the senators wrote.\n\n\u201c[However], it appears that \u2018relief\u2019 was not provided by the IRS to at least some, and potentially thousands of, taxpayers who claimed the EITC in 2019; the destruction of these unprocessed information returns was unnecessary and its direct and indirect harm is disproportionate to whatever storage costs the IRS would have incurred; to date, the IRS is systemically denying/challenging EITC claims that rely upon income reported by these destroyed information returns rather than evaluating documentation in each case; and the IRS has not responded to diverse substantive issues arising from this episode,\u201d the senators continued.\n\nIn addition to the unanswered questions from a previous request for information in May 2022, the senators request new information from the IRS on the impact the document destruction had on taxpayers, especially low-income taxpayers who claimed the earned income tax credit (EITC).\n\nThe full letter is available here.\n\nBackground:", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T18:35:26Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.young.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/young-senate-finance-republicans-irs-document-destruction-harmed-taxpayers/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.81064591743052, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}