Executive

Waste of the Day: IRS Employees Owe $50 Million In Unpaid Taxes

Six thousand Internal Revenue Service (IRS) employees – five percent of the agancy’s workforce – owe $50 million in unpaid taxes.

Published

3 months ago

August 13, 2024

Adam Andrzejewski

Topline: Nearly 6,000 Internal Revenue Service employees and contractors owe $50 million in overdue taxes, according to a federal audit published in July.

Five percent of the IRS workforce are delinquent on their taxes

Key facts: The tax-dodging employees represent 5% of the IRS workforce. Roughly two-thirds of them still do not have a plan in place to pay their taxes properly.

Federal law requires the IRS to fire workers who intentionally don’t pay their taxes, but auditors said, “this disciplinary action is not always enforced.”

The IRS disciplined 1,068 employees between October 2021 and April 2023 — including 139 who “willfully” paid their taxes incorrectly — but only 20 of them were fired. Others had their cases “mitigated” because they had been working for the IRS for a long time or had high job performance ratings.

Seventy-six employees were suspended, mostly for two weeks or less.

Auditors also found that the IRS rehired 397 employees and 115 contractors who previously had conduct issues, including 282 workers with more than one conduct or performance issue. The “conduct issues” ranged from unauthorized access to taxpayer returns to sexual assault and criminal behaviors. Eighty-five of them previously had issues paying their taxes, and 306 had “unacceptable” job performance.

Some of these agents command high salaries

Background: A previous audit found that the federal government as a whole had 149,000 employees with $1.5 billion in unpaid taxes in 2021.

Meanwhile, everyday citizens continue to fund the IRS’ $4.9 billion payroll. The agency paid six-figure salaries to 11,846 people in 2022, according to payroll records at OpenTheBooks.com.

That includes employees supposedly hired to help taxpayers. The IRS’ “taxpayer experience officer” makes $200,000, and the “national taxpayer advocate” makes $203,000.

Search all federal, state and local government salaries and vendor spending with the AI search bot, Benjamin, at OpenTheBooks.com.

Critical quote: “Thank you for committing to ‘trying to rebuild trust’ in the IRS by holding the agency ‘accountable to taxpayers,’” Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) wrote in a letter to IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel. “Today is a great day to demonstrate the seriousness of that pledge by making the thousands of tax-evading tax collectors at the IRS either pay up or pack up. Taxpayers will never trust the IRS when the agency’s own auditors can’t even pass a tax audit.”

Sen. Ernst spearheaded the Congressional measure mandating the audit and leading to these disclosures.

Summary: It’s crazy to think that nearly 6,000 employees working for the tax collection agency – whose salaries are paid by hard working taxpayers – are tax cheats!

This article was originally published by RealClearInvestigations and made available via RealClearWire.

Adam Andrzejewski

CEO at OpenTheBooks.com | Website | + posts

Adam Andrzejewski (say: Angie-eff-ski) was the CEO/founder of OpenTheBooks.com. Before dedicating his life to public service, Adam co-founded HomePages Directories, a $20 million publishing company (1997-2007). His works have been featured on the BBC, Good Morning America, ABC World News Tonight, C-SPAN, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, FOX News, CNN, National Public Radio (NPR), Forbes, Newsweek, and many other national media.

Today, OpenTheBooks.com is the largest private repository of U.S. public-sector spending. Mission: post "every dime, online, in real time." In 2022, OpenTheBooks.com captured nearly all public expenditures in the country, including nearly all disclosed federal government spending; 50 of 50 state checkbooks; and 25 million public employee salary and pension records from 50,000 public bodies across America.

The group's aggressive transparency and forensic auditing of government spending has led to the assembly of grand juries, indictments, and successful prosecutions; congressional briefings, hearings, and subpoenas; Government Accountability Office (GAO) audits; Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports; federal legislation; and much more.

Our Honorary Chairman - In Memoriam is U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, MD.

Andrzejewski's federal oversight work was included in the President's Budget To Congress FY2021. The budget cited his organization by name, bullet-pointed their findings, and footnoted/hyperlinked to their report.

Posted on YouTube, Andrzejewski's presentation, The Depth of the Swamp, at the Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar 2020 in Naples, Florida received 3.8 million views.

Andrzejewski has spoken at the Columbia School of Journalism, Harvard Law School and the law schools at Georgetown and George Washington regarding big data journalism. As a senior policy contributor at Forbes, Adam had nearly 20 million pageviews on 206 published investigations. In 2022, investigative fact-finding on Dr. Fauci's finances led to his cancellation at Forbes.

In 2022, Andrzejewski did 473 live television and radio interviews across broadcast, major cable platforms, and radio shows. Andrzejewski is the author of The Waste of the Day column at Real Clear Policy. The column is syndicated by Sinclair Broadcast Group, owners of nearly 200 ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX affiliates across USA.

Andrzejewski passed away in his sleep at his home in in Hinsdale, Illinois, on August 18, 2024. He is survived by his wife Kerry and three daughters. He also served as a lector at St. Isaac Jogues Catholic Church and finished the Chicago Marathon eight times (PR 3:58.49 in 2022).

Waste of the Day articles published after August 18, 2024 are considered posthumous publications.