	The Department of the Treasury

This report examines FY2016 appropriations for the Treasury Department and its operating bureaus, including the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Organizational Structure and Functions

At its most basic level of organization, the Treasury Department is a collection of departmental offices and operating bureaus. The operating budgets for most Treasury bureaus and offices are funded largely through annual discretionary appropriations. This is the case for the IRS, Bureau of the Fiscal Service, Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, Office of the Inspector General, Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, and Community Development Financial Institutions Fund. These details are provided for each of the Treasury appropriation accounts (which number 9 or 10, depending on whether funding for the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (TFI) is counted as a separate account or folded into the DO account). Departmental Offices

				Budget Request

The President's FY2016 budget request for the Treasury Department included $332 million in appropriations for DO, or $9.3 million more than the amount enacted for FY2015. 2995

The House Appropriations Committee reported a bill ( H.R. S. 1910

S. 1910 , as reported by the Senate Appropriations Committee on July 30, would have given DO $326 million in appropriations in FY2016, or $116 million more than the amount enacted for FY2015 but $6 million less than the budget request. Departmentwide Systems and Capital Investments

				Budget Request

The FY2016 Treasury budget request called for $10.7 million in appropriations for DSCIP, or about $8 million more than the amount enacted in FY2015. H.R. 2995

As reported by the House Appropriations Committee, the bill would have provided $233.5 million in appropriations for the CDFIF in FY2016, or $3.0 million more than the amount enacted for FY2015 and the same as the budget request. Issue for Congress

The three proposals for funding the CDFIF in FY2016 raised the question of the future status of two current programs: the Healthy Food Financing Initiative and the Bank Enterprise Award Program. On the one hand, the Obama Administration asked Congress to increase funding for the former from $22 million in FY2015 to $35 million in FY2016, but to provide no funds for the latter. 2995 recommended separate funding for the HFFI in FY2016, but both would have funded the BEA. Treasury Forfeiture Fund (TFF)

The Treasury Department's budget request included a proposal to cancel permanently $875.0 million in unobligated balances from the TFF in FY2016. Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016

The act mandated a rescission of $700 million from the unobligated balances in the TFF in FY2016. Of this amount, $2.409 billion would have gone to taxpayer services, $5.400 billion to enforcement (including a $352.1 million program integrity cap adjustment under Section 251(b)(2) of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 ( P.L. According to the IRS's budget request for FY2016 was intended to address the following priorities:
Taxpayer Service Improving the level of taxpayer assistance through the IRS's toll-free telephone service Meeting increased demand from taxpayers for help in complying with ACA requirements Delivering enhanced online service options to taxpayers Providing greater assistance to low-income taxpayers and those in need of tax relief because of financial hardship Enforcement Improving tax compliance by implementing FATCA, ACA, and the Information Return Document Matching program for merchant payment cards, third-party reimbursements, and basis reporting for stock transactions Reducing the revenue loss from tax return fraud, including fraud from identity theft Reversing recent declines in examination and collection efforts Increasing the number of criminal investigations Rebuilding public trust in IRS's enforcement of compliance in the tax-exempt sector Infrastructure Maintaining critical IT infrastructure Upgrading IRS facilities to address health and safety concerns Upholding the integrity of "revenue financial systems" Business Systems Modernization Developing new IT capabilities such as increasing self-service options at IRS.gov, including the Get Transcript tool which gives taxpayers direct online access to their tax accounts IRS Direct Pay, which offers a free, secure online option for scheduling and making tax payments IRS2Go, which allows taxpayers to find out the status of their refund through the IRS website Developing a shared platform for case management
Reducing the federal tax gap is an ongoing priority for the IRS. H.R. Another issue was the timing of information returns. S. 1910

The bill, as reported by the Senate Finance Committee, would have provided $10.475 billion in appropriations for the IRS in FY2016, or $470.0 million less than the amount enacted for FY2015 and $2.456 billion less than the budget request.
At its most basic level of organization, the Treasury Department is a collection of departmental offices and operating bureaus. The bureaus as a whole account for 95% of Treasury's budget and workforce. Most bureaus and offices are funded through annual appropriations.
Treasury appropriations were distributed among 10 accounts in FY2015: (1) Departmental Offices (DO), (2) Departmentwide Systems and Capital Investments Program (DSCIP), (3) Office of Inspector General (OIG), (4) Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), (5) Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP), (6) Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), (7) Bureau of the Fiscal Service (BFS), (8) Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (ATTB), (9) Community Development Financial Institutions Fund (CDFIF), and (10) the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
The President's budget request for FY2016 included $13.456 billion in appropriations for the Treasury Department, including a rescission of $875 million for the Treasury Forfeiture Fund (TFF). Of the requested amount, $12.931 billion would go to the IRS; $364 million to the BFS; $332 million to DO; $233.5 million to CDFIF; $167 million to TIGTA; $113 million to FinCEN; $101 million to ATTB; $41 million to SIGTARP; $35 million to OIG; and $11 million to DSCIP.
In early July 2015, the House Appropriations Committee reported a bill (H.R. 2995) that provided appropriations for the Treasury Department and several other agencies in FY2016. Under the measure, Treasury would have received $10.758 billion in appropriations, including a rescission of $721 million from the TFF; this amount was $764 million less than the amount enacted for FY2015 and $2.698 billion less than the budget request.
Later the same month, the Senate Appropriations Committee also reported a bill (S. 1910) to fund Treasury and the same other agencies in FY2016. Under the measure, Treasury would have received $11.139 billion in appropriations, including a rescission of $700 million from the TFF. This amount was $383 million less than the amount enacted for FY2015 and $2.317 billion less than the budget request.
The House and Senate agreed in mid-December 2015 on an omnibus appropriations measure (Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016, P.L. 114-113) for FY2016 that included funding for the Treasury Department. Under the act, Treasury received $11.942 billion in appropriations, or $420 million more than the amount enacted for FY2015 but $1.514 billion less than the budget request.
The three FY2016 budget proposals for Treasury raised several issues for Congress. One concerned the status of funding for the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (TFI): H.R. 2995 as reported would have created a separate appropriations account for the TFF, whereas both the Administration's budget request and S. 1910 as reported proposed combining funding for the Office with overall DO funding. Another issue was the future status of two CDFIF programs: the Healthy Food Initiative and the Bank Enterprise Award Program. The budget request included funding for the former but no funding for the latter, but S. 1910 and H.R. 2995 would have funded the latter without funding the former.
Proposed funding for the IRS in FY2016 raised three additional issues: (1) the potential impact of the three proposals on taxpayer service and tax law enforcement, (2) the advantages and disadvantages of using discretionary funding cap adjustments under the Balanced Budget Act of 2011 to increase funding for IRS enforcement activities, and (3) the implications of the current budget scoring convention of disregarding the net revenue effect of agency administrative programs for the size of the IRS budget.