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ByStephenOhlemacher The Associated Press WASHINGTON The IRS' overloaded phone system hung up on more than 8 million taxpayers this fil- ing season as the agency cut millions of dollars from tax- payer services to help pay to enforce President Barack Obama's health law. For those who weren't disconnected, only 40 per- cent actually got through to a person. And many of those people had to wait on hold for more than 30 minutes, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said Wednesday. The number of discon- nected callers spiked just as taxpayers were being hit with new requirements under the health law. Last year, the phone system dropped 360,000 calls, Koskinen said. For the first time, taxpay- ers had to report whether they had health insurance last year on their tax re- turns. Those who received government subsidies had to respond whether they re- ceived the correct amount. People without insurance faced fines, collected by the IRS, if they did not qualify for an exemption. A new staff report by Republicans on the House Ways and Means Commit- tee criticized the agency's spending priorities. The re- port said the IRS diverted $134 million in user fees that had been spent on cus- tomer service last year to other areas this year. "It looks to me like you're purposely harming taxpay- ers," Rep. Kristi Noem of South Dakota told Koskinen at a hearing Wednesday. Koskinen said the user fees were spent on com- puter upgrades to imple- ment the health law as well as a new law requiring for- eign banks to report infor- mation about U.S. account holders. He said budget cuts ap- proved by Congress left him no choice. The agen- cy's budget has been cut by $1.2 billion since 2010. It now stands at $10.9 billion. "Customer service, both on the phone and in per- son has been far worse than anyone would want," Koskinen told the Ways and Means oversight subcom- mittee. "It's simply a matter of not having enough peo- ple to answer the phones and provide service at our walk-in sites as a result of cuts to our budget." Republicans in Congress adamantly oppose Obama's health law, so some have been working to starve the IRS of funds just as its role in implementing the law ramps up. It won't work, Koskinen said. The IRS is required by law to help implement the health program and the for- eign reporting law, leaving the agency with few other places to cut. He said the agency requested a total of $600 million over the past two years for computer up- grades to deal with the new laws. "In both years the Con- gress gave us zero dollars so we had no choice but to look elsewhere," Koskinen said. "We funded the stat- ute that we are required to implement." The IRS has spent more than $1.2 billion imple- menting the health law. This year, the agency is scheduled to spend an ad- ditional $533 million, said the Ways and Means report. Each year, millions of Americans call the IRS with questions about filling out their tax returns. Last year, 39.9 million people called. When too many people call at once, the IRS sys- tem hangs up on callers at the beginning of their calls, rather than have them wait on hold for an hour or more. The agency refers to these hang-ups as "courtesy dis- connects," according to the Ways and Means report. Koskinen warned at the beginning of the year that phone service would suffer this year because of budget cuts. He said the agency, which has around 90,000 employees, is down 13,000 workers since 2010. Republicans in Congress have also been at odds with the IRS since 2013, when agency officials acknowl- edged that agents had inap- propriately singled out con- servative political groups for extra scrutiny when they ap- plied for tax exempt status. The controversy has sparked investigations by the Justice Department and several committees in Con- gress. "As a result of the IRS' blatant misconduct, Con- gress significantly reduced the agency's budget," said the report by Ways and Means Republicans. But Rep Peter Roskam, R-Ill., said Congress did not cut funding for tax- payer services. He said that decision was made by the agency. "The amount of money Congress appropriated to the IRS for taxpayer assis- tance was the same this year as last year, but the level of service has decreased dras- tically," said Roskam, who chairs the oversight subcom- mittee. "So what happened? The IRS made the decision to move money away from taxpayer assistance." Roskam and other Re- publicans complained that the IRS spent $60 million on employee bonuses last year while it was cutting customer service. The IRS also allows employees to spend nearly 500,000 hours a year working on union ac- tivities while being paid by the agency, he said. OBAMA'S HEALTH LAW 8 million phone calls unanswered as IRS cuts service to taxpayers SUSANWALSH—THEASSOCIATEDPRESSFILE The exterior of the Internal Revenue Service building is seen in Washington. CAROLYN KASTER — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE Honey bees are seen during the Pennsylvania Farm Show and the Pennsylvania Farm Show and Expo Center in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. By Seth Borenstein The Associated Press WASHINGTON A common type of pesticide is dra- matically harming wild bees, according to a new in-the-field study that out- side experts say may help shift the way the U.S. gov- ernment looks at a contro- versial class of chemicals. But in the study pub- lished by the journal Na- ture on Wednesday, honey- bees — which get trucked from place to place to pol- linate major crops like al- monds— didn't show the significant ill effects that wild cousins like bumble- bees did. This is a finding some experts found sur- prising. A second study published in the same journal showed that in lab tests bees are not repelled by the pesticides and in fact may even prefer pes- ticide coated crops, mak- ing the problem worse. Bees of all kinds — cru- cial to pollinating plants, including major agricul- tural crops — have been in decline for several reasons. Pesticide problems are just one of many problems fac- ing pollinators; this is separate from colony col- lapse disorder, which dev- astated honeybee popula- tions in recent years but is now abating, experts said. Exposure to neonicoti- noid insecticides reduced the density of wild bees, resulted in less reproduc- tion, and colonies that didn't grow when com- pared to bees not exposed to the pesticide, the study found. Scientists in Sweden were able to conduct a study that was in the wild, but still had the in- the-lab qualities of hav- ing control groups that re- searchers covet. They used 16 patches of landscape, eight where canola seeds were coated with the pes- ticide and eight where they weren't, and compared the two areas. When the first results came in, "I was quite, 'Oh my God,'" said study lead author Maj Rundlof of Lund University. She said the reduction in bee health was "much more dramatic than I ever expected." In areas treated with the pesticide, there were half as many wild bees per square meter than there were in areas not treated, Rundlof said. Popular pesticide hu rt in g wi ld b ee s HARMING NATURE | NEWS | REDBLUFFDAILYNEWS.COM THURSDAY, APRIL 23, 2015 4 B