Legislation would stop IRS from rehiring fired workers

Following a Treasury Department report showing that the IRS had rehired former employees who had conduct or performance issues, U.S. Reps. Kristi Noem (R-SD) and Peter Roskam (R-IL) recently introduced the Ensuring Integrity in the IRS Workforce Act. 

The proposed legislation would prohibit the IRS from rehiring employees fired for certain forms of misconduct. 

“It is completely irresponsible to rehire an employee who has already been fired for violating taxpayer privacy or falsifying official documents, and yet this has happened hundreds of times at the IRS,” Noem, a member of the House Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee, said. “This legislation is about improving the integrity of a workforce that has significant access to taxpayers’ most intimate financial information. If IRS leadership won’t instill commonsense hiring practices within the agency, we will work to write it into law.”

A Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration report released in February stated that the department had “identified hundreds of former employees with prior substantiated conduct or performance issues ranging from tax issues, unauthorized access to taxpayer information, leave abuse, falsification of official forms, unacceptable performance, misuse of IRS property, and off-duty misconduct.”

The agency said nearly 1 in 5 rehired employees with a record of prior misconduct had performance issues when they returned to the IRS. 

“It’s unfortunate that we need legislation to ensure the IRS doesn’t rehire employees it previously fired,” Roskam, chairman of the House Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee, said. “However, it became necessary earlier this year when we learned that the agency rehired hundreds of former employees who were terminated for poor performance or outright misconduct, including some who abused access to sensitive taxpayer information. I want to thank Rep. Noem for introducing this legislation and for her leadership in demanding accountability and effective service from an IRS in desperate need of reform.”