mr. schulman for being here. we're all talking about limited dollars. we need to spend our dollars in the best way we possibly can. i was reading a report just recently from the treasury inspector general for tax administration who found billions of dollars in federal education credits that were issued in error. what i'm really trying to get to here is number one to save. to make sure we're giving the money to the final that really deserve the money so we can use it in the budget tear process to fund those places such as yourself that can continue to do a good job. but it's very disturbing when i see here how much money this represents that was potentially given to those who don't deserve it. i just want to read a couple of things out of that report. $1.7 million taxpayers receive $2.6 billion in education credits for students for whom there was no supporting documentation in the irs files that they even attended an educational institution. almost 380,000 of these individuals claimed the students were not eligible because they didn't attend the required

. >> with your indulgence, commissioner schulman, mr. be sarah has one follow up question. >> mr. chairman, thank you for generously allowing me to ask one last question. commissioner, two weeks ago i sat down with my tax preparer and went over my taxes in preparation to file and he's been doing this forever. he's an enrolled agent, licensed and all the rest. he said i was always supportive of what you were doing with regard to the tax preparers and trying to get us to be a more defined group. he gets folks who come in to correct taxes that have been filed improperly by folks who prepared these things, charged people money and did it the wrong way. he said i thought it was always good. he asked me a question and said, seems to me like a lot of us who have done this for a long time are the ones being asked to go through the process to certify that we're competent and all the rest. i said to him, my sense is that everyone is going to be at some point touched by the irs as it's moving toward the effort of trying to certify that folks are competent to be out there representing themsel

mr. douglas h. schulman who has served as commissioner since march 2008. commissioner schulman, thank you again for your time today. the committee has received your written statement, and it will be made part of the formal hearing record. you will be recognized for five minutes for your oral remarks. you may begin when you're ready. >> thank you very much to all the members of the subcommittee forgiving me the opportunity to testify today. i want to talk about -- a little about filing season, our strategic initiatives and the president's 2013 budget which would give us much-needed increase over the 2012 enacted levels. a significant portion of the president's 2013 budget would restore congressional reductions in irs funding made over the last two years. i want to start by saying i believe it's incumbent on all of us in the government to be as efficient as possible and to spend taxpayer dollars wisely. for the irs, that means finding savings where we can and continuing to invest in strategic priorities that allow us to improve service. from fiscal year 2009