Congressman: No more bonuses for IRS tax delinquents

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Washington, May 1, 2014 | comments

By: Gregory Korte

A report by Treasury inspectors last week found that 1,146 Internal Revenue Service employees received more than $1 million in bonuses — despite being delinquent on their own taxes.

That revelation drew immediate outrage from Congress. Rep. Sam Johnson, R-Texas, called it “outrageous,” and has now introduced the No Bonuses for Tax Delinquent IRS Employees Act of 2014.

STORYIRS workers who didn’t pay taxes got bonuses

“IRS employees are failing to comply with the very laws they were hired to enforce.  Worse, it further proves that Washington doesn’t respect nor care how Americans’ hard earned tax dollars are spent.  It’s time for the IRS to respect hardworking American taxpayers,” Johnson said in a statement.

The two-page bill is just as it sounds, except that it would even treat installment agreements and offers-in-compromise as delinquencies.

The bill has 14 co-sponsors, all Republicans on the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee. Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., and Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., planned to introduce a companion Senate bill later Thursday, Roberts spokeswoman Sarah Little said.

IRS employees who are deliberately cheating on their taxes are already supposed to be fired. It’s one of the so-called “10 deadly sins” under the 1998 IRS Restructuring and Reform Act, but the Treasury report found at least five cases where IRS employees received bonuses despite misconduct including “willful understatement of tax liabilities over multiple tax years, late payment of tax liabilities, and under reporting of income.”

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