After hearing hours upon hours of testimony from various current and former members of the IRS the House Ways and Means committee will finally hear from the conservative groups who were targeted by the IRS, according to The Huffington Post.
Leaders from six different conservative groups will testify to the House about their mistreatment at the hands of the IRS. Several of the groups claim that their applications for tax-exempt status were delayed inappropriately by the IRS and that agents asked unnecessary, probing questions, reports Fox News.
An organization that works to oppose same-sex marriage, the National Organization for Marriage, says that the IRS shared their private donor information publicly, according to the Huffington Post.
The new head of the IRS, Danny Werfel, testified in front of the House for the first time on Monday. In his testimony he stressed that above all the IRS needs to regain the trust of the American people.
"We must have the trust of the American taxpayer," Werfel said. "Unfortunately that trust has been broken. The agency stands ready to confront the problems that occurred, hold accountable those who acted inappropriately, be open about what happened and permanently fix these problems so that such missteps do not occur again."
It remains to be seen if that trust can be regained by the agency, especially as yet another scandal involving gratuitous spending within the IRS has come to light in the past week. In between the years of 2010-2012 the IRS spent about $50 million on conferences for their own employees. At one conference in Anaheim they also gave out lavish suite upgrades and gifts to employees, according to the Associated Press.
Outraged by the combination of both the abuse of power from the tax-exemption scandal and the gross misuse of funds from the latest scandal Rep. Ander Crenshaw, R-Fla., said that the government needs to look very closely at the amount of funds they give to the IRS.
"We cannot in good conscience continue to provide hard-earned taxpayers' dollars and have them use those funds to abuse the rights of Americans," Crenshaw said.
Hearings are to take place on Thursday that will look into the conference scandal.
Today's hearing begins at 10:00 a.m. EST, a live stream of the hearing can be viewed here.
