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January 27, 2012 in Nation/World
Owing IRS could cost federal workers jobs
Bills would make tax delinquency firing offense
WASHINGTON – A recent IRS report showing that current and retired federal employees owe more than $3.4 billion in income taxes is fueling a drive on Capitol Hill to fire and prohibit hiring the tax delinquents on Uncle Sam’s payroll.
The report shows that about 98,000 federal civilian workers and postal employees – or roughly 3 percent of that workforce – owed about $1 billion in 2010, including 684 congressional staffers who owed more than $10 million.
While the total number of delinquent federal employees has dropped, the $1 billion in tax debt for current civilian workers has increased from about $600 million in 2004. When retirees and military personnel are included, nearly 280,000 people owed $3.4 billion, according to the data.
“If you work for the federal government and you don’t pay your taxes, you should be fired,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, who has sponsored the Federal Employee Tax Accountability Act.
The measure cleared a committee last year and awaits a House vote. Under the bill, anyone who is “seriously delinquent” with a debt that has led to a public lien notice would be ineligible for federal work. It would exempt active military personnel and federal workers who enter installment arrangements to pay off their tax debts. A similar bill has been introduced in the Senate by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.
During a hearing last year, Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said that the tax compliance rate in the federal community is much higher than in the general public.
The IRS was owed more than $114 billion by all individual taxpayers as of Sept. 30, according to the agency.
Critics of the legislation have said that firing employees who owe taxes would make it more difficult to collect the money. “The unemployed hardly make for very good taxpayers,” the Federal Managers Association said in a letter to lawmakers last year.
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nslopeofw on January 27 at 5:25 a.m.
Damn straight. Its the law for everyone else to pay taxes on time. Give one extension for 3 months. If taxes are not paid up in full, or a payment plan (with penalties and interest) is not in place by the end of the extension, the individual is terminated.
DickAdams on January 27 at 8:49 a.m.
Seems to me, federal officials have dodged paying federal income taxes for decades. How come? For crying out loud, even our current secretary of the treasury, Tim Geithner was a income tax evader but congress gave Obama the green light for his cabinet position anyway. I suppose the reason might have been because of so many other crooks in congress guilty of their own unpaid tax debt, continuing their usual double standards. It appears the IRS gets tough and pick and choose Americans that may be on the outs with the aministration, retaliating against them to make Americans think the IRS are enforcing the Federal Tax laws. Yeah, like Bernie Madoff when the IRS allowed this low life to steal for decades before they decided to listen to an informer who had pointed his finger at good old Bernie for years and years. Heck, look right here in the Lilac City where the taxpayers are on the hook until 2030 to pay off a debt because of illegal muni bonds that City Hall and the Colwes Dynasty, as well as two law firms involvement where other officials were in bed with both law firms disgracing our city. Heck, Forbes magazine has named Spokane the SCAM capitol in the USA twice. The latest was just last year when Forbes named Spokane the SCAM capitol etc for the second time.
Heck, how about Charlie Rangle, just last year, where he should have been kicked out of congress and sent to the Iron Bar Hotel? Both the republicans and democrats have their den of thief’s that served time in the slammer. Of course, Idaho was put on the map big time, when their Senator tapped danced in the Minnesota Airport rest room trying to make out with a guy in the next stall.
JBlim on January 27 at 9:22 a.m.
Why not just garnish their pay the way they do everyone else who has tax liens? Forget the payment plans. The IRS already gets precedence over civil judgments, don’t they? This proposal is just more anti-federal worker garbage, just more politics as usual. People have a lot of reasons for being in debt, not all deserve firing.