U.S. Senator Pat Roberts, a senior member of the Senate Committee on Finance, today told John Koskinen, President Obama’s nominee for Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that the overburdened agency must stay out of politics following the agency’s unlawful intimidation of political groups.

“Given all of the issues with the current tax code, with the IRS’ difficulty in implementing the current system, with fraud rife in a number of programs, and with the huge work load hitting now on Obamacare, and its politically motivated targeting of non-profit groups, we need to fundamentally re-think the federal tax system,” Roberts said. “A FAIR Tax plan would be a good start.”

The following are Senator Roberts’ remarks as prepared for delivery at the Finance Committee hearing on the nomination:

“When we met earlier this fall, you acknowledged that the Internal Revenue Service is stretched very thin, and that its role in implementing Affordable Care Act will necessarily result in the scaling down of some of IRS’ core functions.

“The question is, in implementing this law, will you be able to more with less or less with less?