certain software tax packages do allow for people to download their w-2s electronically. it does exist. it's $65 to purchase that package and some people don't want to make that expense. >> i think the demise of refund anticipation alone has it told tax payers you can get your dollars tomorrow. suddenly the irs giving you money through direct deposit and electronic filing within ten days looked like an enormously long time. we have to really think hard about messaging and communicating with tax payers to talk to them about what's the reality of the filing season. and that they actually really do want us to do these refund screens and that, you know, the first year it may be hard because you're depending on this money like you have always. but if you can adjust your

behavior, then you can depend on it in the future at the same time every year. the lore income really used this for paying their heating bills, for paying -- studies show they use it for buying refrigerators, buying school tloet clothes. stuff like that. i think we have to work with a larger community to get people used to it. i think the irs has to step up to that plate and really change expectations and behavior. >> two final questions related here. one is with the information provided with the push on certified tax preparers that you're moving forward with. when there's a professional tax -- a paid tax preparer do they have to certify, i know they sign that they prepared the document, the return, but do they have to certify in some way

that they've seen like the ws or the supporting documentation. is there an affirmation they have to make? >> i don't think the signature means that, mr. chairman. i can come back to you on a more detailed discussion of under circular 230 what exactly are they signing when they sign the return. but the due diligence i think is at a broader level than that. i can come back to you with more specifics. >> that would be great. in just looking again at conduct in the type of fraud, are we able -- we talked last year about the issue of debit cards and what percentage of identity theft fraud is paid out on debit cards versus a deposit into a bank account because of the ability for a criminal to access money in a bank account.

there's much more of a trail to be filed if we're going to pursue the criminal conduct different than with a debit card. >> i think i'll have to come back to you with that as well. we have seen an increase in the use of debit cards. you're quite right. there are pluses and minuses to that. >> i would -- i think that goes to the broader issue assessment of the information, you know, that we have. if we're identifying broader cases, what percentage of those were asking for refunds on debit cards. as to should we be issuing debit cards? >> i'm not sure we know that. i think the debit card has an account that's the same as a bank account. >> the financial management services, it sees an account

number. it does not know if it's a debit card or bank account. that would be something that was known by the software providers. when you hear the testimony in tampa with, a former drug dealer has debit cards with fraudulent returns it seems like some evidence that the criminals who are organized criminals doing this are using that method more likely than any other method. so, again, it's a data analysis is what i'm after. >> there's no doubt that we're seeing the same stories you are where there are rows of debit cards. i want to make it clear it's not -- if we have stopped the refund, the criminal will still have its debit card. he or she will have the debit card. there will be nothing loaded on

it. when he or she goes to load, there will be nothing there. it will be stopped by us or by the debt card company because it's finding fraud as well. those stacks i'm sure some of them have money, don't get me wrong. it shouldn't be assumed that they all have money on them. a final comment and then to wrap up. i wanted to just re-emphasize this is about victims. legitimate tax payers who are victimized by criminals. there's maybe no more egregious example of what i heard reported this week of a fallen hero of this nation who gave his life in defense of the nation. when his parents come to learn that not only did they lose their son, their deceased son was victimized by identity theft related to taxpayer refund. that just epitomizes the type of

victimization that's occurring. we need to do right by that family and by every individual or family out there those legitimate hard working law-abiding citizens are not victimized and if and when they are, that we prioritize them. i know we can do a lot better in that regard. i want to thank each of you for your testimony, your patience here especially with the break and the floor votes. thank the ranking member. as hopefully came through, we're about trying to just work through this issue with you and how can we help? and whether it's the issue of adequate funding for the resources that make that return on investment that we invest and in the end the tax payers come out ahead whether be legislative authority that you don't have and we need to provide, on all aspects i want to work with each of you and our officers. >> i wanted to clarify one thing in response to the question about the statute of

limitations. mr. miller was correct in terms of it's ten years to collect. there is no statute of limitations on fraud if it's willful fraud. there is a three-year statute of limitations on the irs' ability to examinations on tax returns. there's something that needs to be clarified here and the overall issue. >> i appreciate that clarification. do you want to make a closing remark? >> i want to associate myself with your remarks and thank the witnesses for being here. and say if there's something we need to do on this side, feel free to let us know. i just think there's some areas there that needs to be dealt with. you know, and that, i think that working together we can deal with it. and i think that i thank you very much mr. chairman for this hearing. >> again, we'll have the record open for seven days for some of

that strainous materials or response to some of the questions. i appreciate our witnesses testimony. this hearing stands adjourned.

this is c-span3 with politics and public affairs programming throughout the week and every weekend 48 hours of people and events telling the american story on american history tv. get our schedules and see past programs at our websites. and you can join in the conversation on social media sites. >> charles colson special

counsel to president nixon who pled guilty and went to business for his role in the watergate cover up and later became an evangelical preacher died this weekend at the age of 80. he talked about the watergate can zal. >> kissinger had the right, but he abused it to come into the oval office without having him announced. kissinger just walked in whenever he wanted to. nixon told him that to feel free and interrupt anything. henry would do it for trivial things. one day nixon was really kind of ticked off at henry for a variety of things. we were in the executive office building, the door -- the far door swung open and it was henry. nixon did not appear to look,

but he knew it was henry. he said i think it the time we use nuclear weapons. everything else has failed. and kissinger stood in the doorway absolutely paralyzed. that's on a tape someplace. somebody's going to hear this and think nixon is a mad made. colson did bring out the dark side of nixon. everything they say is true. it was pure humor. nixon loved it. >> maer more about his political career, weathergate and his later work in prison reform online at the c-span video library with a quarter century of politics and public affairs available on your computer anytime. >> it's been more than 20 years since los angeles police officers were videotaped beating rodney king after a traffic stop. the officers were found not

guilty of police brutality. sparking the 1992 los angeles riots that killed 53 people. rodney king recently published an autobiography, the riot within. tomorrow he speaks at the shaumburg center in harlem. you can see that event live on book tv's website. booktv.org. news corporation chairman rupert murdoch and his son james murdoch this week testified before a judge investigating phone hacking by their british newspapers. it gets underway tuesday morning live on c-span2 at 5:00 a.m. eastern. we had planned to bring you live coverage of the social securitied a medicare trustees releasing their annual report today on the financial health of those programs. instead we're going to record that event and bring it to you later in our schedule. citizens against government waste released its annual report on earmarks last week and found

a record low of is 52 earmarks. that's a 98% decrease from the more than 9,000 earmarks two years ago. here's that report. >> good morning. i'm the president of citizens against government waste. since cagw published the first pay book in 1991 our venture has been to eventually eliminate earmarks. the 2012 congressional pig book shows that tremendous progress has been made toward that goal. there are only 152 earmarks a record low. that is a 93.3% decrease from the 9,129 earmarks in fiscal year 2010. the total cost is $3.3 billion which is an 80% decrease from

the $16.5 billion that was in the appropriations bills two years ago. there are no earmark for the museums, theaters opera house, bridges to nowhere, shrimp aqua culture or brown tree snakes. there is no state by state breakdown and there are no oinger awards. instead many of the earmarks in fiscal year 2012 involved larger amounts of money and include fewer details that in plier years. for example, a $50 million earmark for the national guard counter drug program which appears in the department of defense appropriations act corresponds to nine earmarks totaling $23 million in fiscal year 2010. in that year the projects appeared in the congressionally directed spending section at the end of the bill and included the names of the members and the location of the projects in accordance with the transparency rules. members created new categories of earmarks such as additional

funding for ongoing work and a continuing authorities program all within the army corp. of engineers inside the energy and water appropriations bill. and unfortunately in our view, our appearance here today also means that the congressional moratorium on earmarks has been violated. there's always been a difference in definition in. our view some of them appear to have violated the moratorium. we're not here to quibble over a definition. we're here to point out we've made this program thanks to all the members here today, tax payers and a changed attitude on both sides of the aisle on capitol hill. since each bill was certified as earmark free, there is far less transparency. it is not clear who asked for these earmarks or who might be making phone calls to various agencies after the bills have been adopted and the money is sitting there to ask them to send a particular project to a state or district.

so the next step in tracking earmarks would be to enforce president bush's january 2008 executive order that each federal agency must release all communications from members of congress related to earmarks. it's not a coincidence that all of the programs in the 2010 congressional pig book correspond to past earmarks. in addition, in november 2011, president obama reiterated that agencies should release the letters from members and all contacts that direct agency staff to fund particular projects. as usual, the department of defense was the repository of the vast majority of earmarks 61% in defense, $2 billion out of the $3.3 billion total. and the senate was once again the source of far more earmarks than the house. out of the earmarks that could be identified is coming from the house of senate 77% of them

originated in the senate. some of the earmarks that again appeared in prior years that we think could violate the moratorium include $35 million for the national energy technology laboratory, $10 million for the chicago santory and shift dispersal barrier. $8.9 billion for san yaw kwen river restoration and $3 million for aquatic plant control. one of the longest running earmarks is the east-west center in hawaii. the center has received ten earmarks worth $103.8 million since 2001. i'm senior roy, since 9 v 1997, all added by senate appropriations chairman. the senator admitted in 2007 that the project was created over the objections of the state department and without any hearings. a similar group, the north-south center stopped receiving earmarks in 2001. there is no doubt that funding

for the east-west center also would have gone south were it not located in the state of the senate appropriations committee chairman. one of the more egregious earmarks in the defense bill is $5 million added for the youth program which teaches science, technology, engineering and math to at risk youth in multiple location at or near military bases around the country. since fiscal year 2001 six earmarks costing tax payers $19 million have been directed to this program. the february 2012 on program duplication and overlap found that $3 billion was spent in 13 agencies for these stem programs. eliminating the star bates program would drop that number all the way down to $208. because the moratorium is only temporary, senator pat toomey and representative jeff flake both of which are here today

have introduced the bipartisan earmark elimination act which would establish a permanent ban on earmarks. unfortunately the senate amendmy offered by a vote of 40-59, which is a lot more we used to get to try to ban earmarks, and the bill introduced by congressman flake has not reached the floor of the house. that would be the full objective and would meet our original goal in 1991 of truly eliminating earmarks. the effort to permanently ban earmarks is essential. many members of congress including senate majority leader harry reid, senate appropriations committee chairman, a number of republicans including mike rogers, a republican of alabama, have been clamoring for the restoration of earmarks. representative rogers said earmarks are required in order to pass legislation referring mostly to the transportation bill which had trouble reaching the house floor not because of a lack of earmarks but because

it's simply too expensive. senator reid stated often that earmarking has been going on since we were a country and there is a constitutional obligation for congressionally directed spending. senator inoway says he will do everything he can to reinstate earmarks. until a permanent ban taxpayers will be justified in believing that members ever congress are creative in trying to skirt the moratorium and continuing to obtain earmarks. it is reasonable to conclude that the 59 members of the senate who voted against senator toomey's amendment would like to continue having earmarks. as in previous years all of the items in gagw's pig book meet our 7-point criteria established in 1991 in conjunction with the bipartisan congressional pork busters coalition. the item must be requested by only the house or senate, not authorized, not competitively

awarded, not requested by the president, greatly exceeding the president's budget request or the previous year's funding, not been the subject of hearings or serves only a local or special interest. and again, in the 2012 congressional pig book all of the earmarks have appeared in prior years. that means that since 1991, chaw identified earmarks worth a total of $311 billion. we'd like that to be the final number pending the approval of these efforts to permanently ban earmarks. with that i'd like to introduce senator john mccain, i think the longest standing attendee at the congressional pig book press conferences. >> thank you, tom. thank you for your continued efforts and leadership. i would like to also thank my colleagues who are with me here today who not only oppose

earmarks and wasteful and pork barrel spending but also take a very active role in opposing these kinds of earmarks and spending that results in corruption. our good friend senator tom coburn who is not here today says -- often said and we have used his line that earmarks are the gateway drug to corruption in washington. and we have seen that happen. we've seen that happen. so, i'm very grateful for my colleagues' efforts for the efforts to have a permanent ban on earmarks. and if you think we are out of the woods because of the reductions in earmark spending look at the vote in the united states senate that tom just referred to. 40-59. 59 members of the united states senate still would like to see the earmarks come back. they would like to see a bloated

highway bills with pork barrel projects in them. they would like to see my all time favorite was the $50,000 to study the effect on the ozone layer of flatulence in cows. we can see that come back. i want to congratulate my colleagues. it's not easy. it's not easy when a constituent or important part of your state's economy comes and says we just need this small amount of additional money and if you'll just write a letter or just insert it in the appropriations bill, then we will be able to create jobs, to da-to da. it takes courage to stand up. i'm happy to see so many of my colleagues have followed their lead. the fact is that there's already conversations about well, we can't pass the highway bill because we haven't got enough earmarks in them. isn't that a damning indictment of the mind-set of members of congress that we can't pass a

bill unless we pay people off? so tom, i thank you for and appreciate your efforts. i just want to mention one area that still goes on of earmarks, and that obviously is the defense authorization and appropriations bills. there are earmarks in the authorization bill as well as the appropriations bill. and why is it that i worry about that? because obviously as tom mentioned, it's the willy sutton syndrome when they asked him why he robbed banks, he said because that's where the money is. well, the money is in the defense appropriations bills as well. and a great example of that is $120 million for three earmarks of $40 million each for quote alternative energy research. we're talking about cutting the army by 100,000 people, the marines by 80,000 people and yet

we're now have our armed services in the business of advanced -- alternative energy research. the navy has thread parade. they spent in excess of $400 per gallon for about 20,000 gallons of algae-based biofuel. the role of the armed forces of the united states is not to engage in energy research. the job of energy research should be in the energy department, not taking it out of defense department funds. so tom, thanks. i'm not sure how many of the 21 years that you have been doing this i've been able to attend but i think most of them. i thank my colleagues and i want to again reiterate, tom, your reward for this work will be in heaven, not here on earth. thank you very much. >> thank you, senator. next we have senator jim demint who has been leading this effort, very strongly both when he was in the house, now of course in the senate.

>> thank you, tom. and citizens against government waste for years of work. testament that persistence and really long suffering can actually change the way things are done in washington. i want to thank john mccain who has been i think a lot of our inspiration to take this on and to see in the last year and a half actually get a temporary ban on earmarks was something that so many people said could never be done. we had also been told for years that earmarks had nothing to do with passing big overbudget bills. but as soon as they were suspended, suddenly these big bills have more difficulty going through. and as john said, they have been used for years and we all knew it, to bribe, to sweeten, to get bills through. and we find that a lot of the bipartisanship here in washington is really all about

spending. and as long as we can spend money, republicans and democrats, work together. if we can hand out the candy. we stopped that temporarily but tom, you know, they are going to try in the next probably few weeks to redefine what an earmark is. instead of fixing how we do tariff suspensions, fixing that process, they want to redefine an earmark so they can do it. instead of fixing how the corps of engineers works, which we could do and make it work better for the american people, they want to bring back earmarks to direct the corps. the same with the transportation bill. we know over half of the senate and probably over half of the house wants to bring back earmarks, so unless all of the american people continue to be engaged and make no mistake the only reason earmarks were banned temporarily is because americans found out about it, particularly through citizens against government waste, they were

against it, and candidates in the last cycle ran for banning earmarks. and when they came in, they voted that way, we got rid of them. but now they have all been in washington for a while. it's going to be a little harder to keep it that way. hopefully we can get a new group coming in this cycle who campaigns on banning earmarks permanently as pat toomey and jeff flake and others have tried to do. i thank my colleagues. we made some progress. we can't let up. we can push it across the finish line. >> thank you, senator. next we have senator pat toomey who again carried over his opposition to earmarks from the house to the senate and again, is the republican sponsor of the earmark elimination act. >> thank you, tom. i also want to congratulate you and cagw as well as my colleagues standing here today who have been champions in this battle. i think it's fair to say seldom do we have this much progress on such a