IRS Request for More Terrorism Investigators is Denied

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration has scuttled a plan to increase by 50 percent the number of criminal financial investigators working to disrupt the finances of Al Qaeda, Hamas and other terrorist organizations to save $12 million, a Congressional hearing was told on Tuesday, The New York Times reported.

The Internal Revenue Service had asked for 80 more criminal investigators beginning in October to join the 160 it has already assigned to penetrate the shadowy networks that terrorist groups use to finance plots like the Sept. 11 attacks and the recent train bombings in Madrid. But the Bush administration did not include them in the president's proposed budget for the 2005 fiscal year.

The disclosure, to a House Ways and Means subcommittee, came near the end of a routine hearing into the IRS budget after most of the audience, including reporters, had left the hearing room.

The White House would not comment directly on the reasons for striking the 80 positions the IRS sought. Claire Buchan, the White House deputy spokeswoman, said that a proposed 16 percent increase in Treasury Department financing to fight both terrorism and financial crimes was enough. The IRS is part of the Treasury Department.

The proposal would increase such financing to $54.3 million in the 2005 fiscal year from $46.8 million in the current year.

-- NYSCPA.org News Staff

Posted on 3/31/04