Roskam highlights IRS misconduct

A new report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) that found that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), over a 10 year period, repeatedly retained employees who willfully violated tax law was recently highlighted by House Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Peter Roskam (R-IL).

More than 60 percent of employees who were found to have willfully violated tax law were retained by the IRS, the TIGTA report said. In 34 cases reviewed in depth by TIGTA, more than half of the employees with tax issues had other misconduct issues.

“Earlier this year, we learned the IRS rehired hundreds of employees formerly fired for performance or misconduct issues, including improperly accessing private taxpayer information,” Roskam said in response to the report. “Today, we also learn that the agency acted with impunity in purposely refusing to fire a majority of employees who violated tax law, including some repeat offenders with other documented misconduct issues. The IRS owes the American people an explanation for this display of bureaucratic incompetence. To argue that budget cuts provide ‘a tax cut for tax cheats’ while harboring employees who violate the laws they are supposed to enforce quite frankly defies logic. The gulf of trust between taxpayers and the IRS has never been wider, and the IRS can and must do better.”

IRS employees found to have willfully broken tax laws are to be fired under the law unless the IRS commissioner intervenes personally to prevent the firing. In all of the cases in TIGTA’s report, the IRS commissioner failed to document why he lessened the penalty for the employees’ misconduct.

Additionally, approximately 30 percent of employees with willful tax noncompliance cases received awards and promotions within a year, including almost $145,000 in performance awards, 900 hours in time-off awards, more than 30 promotions and four permanent pay increases.

Roskam previously sent IRS Commissioner John Koskinen a letter in February to determine why the IRS rehired hundreds of former employees who had been terminated for performance or conduct issues, including the mishandling of taxpayer information. The letter followed an audit report released in December by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.