Even as the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) political targeting scandal widens, an army of 2,137 IRS agents are gearing up to implement and police numerous aspects of Obamacare. Their enforcement of the law is under the leadership of Sarah Hall Ingram, the person in charge of the tax-exempt unit from 2009 to 2012 during the targeting.
House and Senate Republicans have introduced bills to stop IRS involvement in implementing Obamacare. Sen. John Cornyn introduced the “Keep the IRS Off Your Health Care Act of 2013” (S. 983) in the Senate, while Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) sponsored a bill by the same name in the House (H.R. 1990).
“The official who oversaw the targeting of tea party groups is now in charge of implementing Obamacare at the IRS,” said Cornyn. “Now more than ever, we need to prevent the IRS from having any role in Americans’ health care.
Cornyn added: “I do not support Obamacare, and after the events of last week, I cannot support giving the IRS any more responsibility or taxpayer dollars to implement a broken law.”
The IRS says that Ingram “has been assigned full-time to ACA [Affordable Care Act–Obamacare] activities since December 2010.” However, as ABC News has pointed out, “Ingram maintained her title as commissioner of tax exempt and government entities, using it in testimony she delivered to congress in November 2011 and May 2012.”
As this official IRS chart shows, as of February 2011, Ingram remained the head of the tax exempt and government entities unit responsible for executing the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups. Indeed, from 2009 to 2012, Ingram received $103,390 in bonuses.
Ingram is not without her defenders, however. Disgraced former IRS Acting Commissioner Steven Miller says Sarah Hall Ingram is “a superb civil servant.” Asked whether Ingram was involved in the targeting scandal, Miller–who was forced to resign his post–said “I wouldn’t imagine so.”
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