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On Tuesday, U.S. Senator for Oklahoma James Lankford participated in a Senate Finance hearing entitled “2020 Filing Season and IRS COVID-19 Recovery.”

Sen. Lankford questioned IRS Commissioner Charles P. Rettig on the lessons learned from closing IRS offices due to COVID-19 and from telework while protecting American’s private information.

In the talks with Commissioner Rettig, Sen. Lankford said, "On charitable giving, I just want to give you a heads up. You and I both know that when you alter tax code it also alters behavior in multiple ways. There are six of us—three Republicans, three Democrats that are working together to try and resolve some of the issues on charitable giving. That will be something we will come back and have a longer conversation with you about in the future on how we can continue to encourage engagement on charitable giving in the future. So, thanks again for the service."

Sen. Lankford also asked what the agency’s plan is to get things back up and running so Americans can get answers to their tax questions. He also provided an update on a bipartisan bill he recently introduced to expand the above-the-line federal deduction for charitable giving.