More than 100 tax law professors have sent a letter to House leaders in opposition to a resolution to impeach or censure Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner John Koskinen.
The letter was addressed to Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI); House Ways and Means Committee Chair Kevin Brady (R-TX); Minority Leader of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA); and House Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Sander Levin (D-MI). The letter urged those Congressional leaders to “oppose any resolution to impeach or censure John Koskinen, the Commissioner of Internal Revenue.”
The letter, dated August 28, 2016, was sent as Congress heads back to work after summer break. Just before the break, in June, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee voted to censure Commissioner Koskinen over obstruction claims related to the IRS targeting of groups seeking tax-exempt status. While Koskinen was not IRS Commissioner during the scandal, he has been accused by Congressional officials of misconduct related to the investigation.
(You can see a timeline of events related to the scandal here.)
No formal charges have been filed against Koskinen or any other IRS employee by the Department of Justice or law enforcement officials (former IRS Director of Exempt Organizations Lois Lerner, however, was found in contempt of Congress). The standard for impeachment, however, is not the same as the standard for criminal charges.
Censure is, of course, not as drastic as impeachment: it’s a public condemnation and requires a simple majority vote in the House and no action in the Senate. Impeaching an official requires a vote in the full House and, after a formal trial, a 2/3 vote of the Senate to remove the official from office. If that sounds like a high bar, it is: no agency official has been impeached in more than 140 years.
Earlier this summer, Michael J. Gerhardt, a UNC-Chapel Hill constitutional law professor, voiced his concerns about potential impeachment charges against Koskinen, noting that “[t]he House has never impeached a sub-Cabinet official.” Gerhardt testified (downloads as a pdf) before the House Judiciary Committee that “the Founders did not want high-ranking officials in the executive or judicial branches to be subject to impeachment for their mistakes in office,” suggesting impeachment be reserved for more serious offenses.
The 123 law professors who signed the letter to House Officials apparently agree, writing that they “believe that nothing that has been reported provides any basis for impeachment or censure.” Here’s the text of the letter in its entirety (except for the signatures, see below):
Dear Leaders of Congress:
We the undersigned 123 tax law professors teach in law schools across America. We teach tax law and respect for the process of law in Utah, Montana, Texas, Georgia, Louisiana, Nevada, Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio as well as in Massachusetts and Washington, D.C. and places in between.
We urge you to oppose any resolution to impeach or censure John Koskinen, the Commissioner of Internal Revenue.
We teach our students how to represent clients in positions adverse to the Internal Revenue Service, but we also teach our students respect for the law and for the IRS. The IRS carries out a vitally important mission for our country. Respect for the IRS fosters the voluntary compliance that is essential for our revenue system to work.
Impeachment or censure will harm the country by weakening our revenue system. Impeachment or censure would disrupt the functioning of the IRS—which has had four Commissioners in as many years—leading to increased tax evasion, reduced revenue collection, and a higher national debt. Impeachment or censure would also set a dangerous precedent and deter talented people from working to improve the country’s struggling revenue system.
We also fear that targeting Commissioner Koskinen will distract the Congress from the vital work of enacting meaningful tax reform. Academics, practitioners, and businesses agree that we must revise our revenue system to rationalize and simplify the rules, and to minimize the collateral costs of raising the necessary revenue.
We believe that nothing that has been reported provides any basis for impeachment or censure. Commissioner Koskinen was called out of retirement when the IRS needed help, and responded for the simple reason that it was the time for all good citizens to come to the aid of their country.
We respectfully request that the House reject misguided efforts to impeach or censure Commissioner Koskinen, and focus instead on enacting meaningful reforms to our revenue system.
You can see the names of all of the professors who signed the letter here (links to Scribd).
