September 16, 2005
JS-2726

The Honorable John W. Snow
Prepared Remarks: Visit to IRS Call Center
Atlanta, GA

Good afternoon. It is good to be here in Atlanta, spending some time with the dedicated and hard-working employees of the IRS.

I appreciate being here with Commissioner Everson; I'm very proud of the work that IRS employees, and all Treasury employees, are doing on this day.

At this facility, an IRS call center has become a disaster-relief call center. Working with FEMA, the highly-trained government staff here are taking and directing calls, offering help, kindness and hope to Americans whose lives have been overwhelmed by the cruelty of a terrible storm.

I am also glad to be in the South on this national day of remembrance. We grieve for the losses of our brothers and sisters in the Gulf Coast. But we also look forward to rebuilding the communities that were devastated. Rebuilding will be an essential part of healing wounds that go much deeper than physical wreckage.

As we rebuild infrastructure, homes and businesses, we must also help rebuild lives with a sense of hope and opportunity.  Our overriding goal must be that everyone has an opportunity to build a better life for themselves and their families. We look forward to a time when victims take back control of their own lives and begin their promising futures. Nothing less is acceptable.

We are fortunate to have a really strong, vibrant economy in this country, and that is going to be critical as we pursue rebuilding efforts. With a strong economy, we can afford to meet any challenge.

I was thrilled to learn that here in Atlanta, hurricane victims are already being absorbed into the community, actually emptying the shelters that the area is providing. This can only happen when government, employers and individuals are all working, together, to give their fellow Americans a new start in life.

This example of an early start toward the re-establishment of independence for victims is one of the reasons, although Katrina is a disaster on many levels, I am confident the residents of places like New Orleans and Gulfport Mississippi and southern Alabama will recover.

We must not forget, as Americans, that we picked ourselves up after 9/11 and other disasters, we have the will and the resources and the resolve to do so again. I am confident we will again. It's the spirit of Americans to do so.

An outpouring of help from individuals and businesses has not only helped enormously, it has reminded us that this is a country where people take care of each other.

At Treasury and the IRS, we're doing our best to make sure that charitable spirit – that we see in both individuals and companies – is encouraged. Last week, we announced an action that allows employers to adopt leave-based donation programs under which employees could forego vacation, sick or personal leave, and in turn their employers would make cash contributions to charitable organizations involved in relief efforts. We believe that this will help workers and employers as they seek ways to help their fellow Americans.

And yesterday the IRS announced that 401(k) s and similar employer-sponsored retirement plans can make loans and hardship distributions to victims of Hurricane Katrina and members of their families.

This was the first time that the IRS, Treasury and Department of Labor are providing broad-based relief to retirement plan participants affected by a major disaster. This relief will make it possible for people to get their retirement money more quickly, with a lot less red tape.

Treasury and the IRS also know that the last thing people in the devastated areas of the Gulf Coast need to worry about right now is taxes. That's why we quickly implemented extensions of tax deadlines, so that people in the affected areas who would otherwise have had taxes or returns due on September 15^th don't have to worry about that deadline.

The IRS also plays a special role in helping hurricane survivors re-build their financial lives. Taxpayers can call, write or walk-in to an IRS center to receive expedited assistance in reconstructing their financial records based on their tax returns, for example.   

Using the toll-free disaster hotline 1-866-562-5227, Hurricane Katrina victims can obtain expedited assistance to receive disaster tax loss kits, copies of tax return transcripts, copies of Federal Tax Returns, and guidance regarding records reconstruction. For hurricane victims, the IRS is waiving the fees normally associated with return and transcript requests.

To assist taxpayers that have small businesses, the IRS works in partnership with the Small Business Administration to provide return transcripts to the SBA Office of Disaster Assistance on an expedited basis. The information is used for income verification and cash flow analysis for immediate lending determinations and assistance with records reconstruction. 

These are just a few examples of the help that IRS can offer during this difficult time of recovery and rebuilding. Again, I want to thank the employees of the IRS for their help, for being there when your fellow Americans are in their hour of greatest need.

Helen Keller once said that: "The world is full of suffering; it is also full of the overcoming of it."

The overcoming of this event is going to be a mammoth task, requiring great commitment and dedication from every party involved: government, business and individuals. But we are up for the task. Together, this country will ensure that the victims of Hurricane Katrina can look forward to very bright futures.

Thank you, again, for having me here today.