If it seems we are living in meme-reality, it just might be that we are. The newly implemented Department of Government Efficiency, or “DOGE” for short has their sights set on cutting unnecessary government spending and increasing accountability in all government agencies as well. This includes the IRS, and its reportedly many IRS employees who were delinquent on their own tax responsibilities and obligations last year. Delinquent to the tune of almost $50 million dollars, that is.
A Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration revealed that while 95% of IRS and Contractor Employees with the agency were compliant the remaining 5% had issues with either filing compliance or payment compliance. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration in its report stated, “We believe that IRS and contractor employees who are not tax compliant could negatively affect public trust in tax administration and the perception that the IRS is being honest in its dealings with all taxpayers.”
As for unfiled returns, employees of the agency were over 99% were compliant, but 15 employees have 16 unfiled returns. Contractors with the agency were also 99% compliant but 72 contractors had 94 unfiled returns.
For payment noncompliance, 4% of IRS employees had not fully paid their IRS balances, and 10% of contractor employees were not in payment compliance. Specifically, the IRS nonpayment compliance is estimated to be around $12 million, and the IRS contractor nonpayment compliance is estimated to be approximately $17 million.
So, what is the IRS doing to enforce disciplinary action? The following actions were recorded in the ALERTS for the 1,068 noncompliant IRS employees:
- 439 employees received an advisory letter. If the case only has a minor tax issue that does not rise to the level of a referral to the LR, the ETC Branch will issue an advisory letter to the employee.
- 229 employees received written counseling. Most of the non-RRA 98 § 1203 cases were closed with written counseling.
- 194 employees received an admonishment, reprimand, or some type of oral counseling.
- 142 admonishments.
- 37 reprimands.
- 8 oral counsels.
- 4 admonishments in lieu of a suspension.
- 3 admonishments in lieu of a reprimand.
- 76 employees were suspended. Most of these cases involved willful RRA 98 § 1203(b)(8) or (b)(9) cases resulting in the employee being suspended for less than 14 days.36
- 130 employee cases were closed with:
- 98 being issued a cautionary letter.
- 9 being merged with another case.
- 8 having data entry errors (the cases were cancelled).
- 15 being issued a closed without action letter.
Subsequently, the HCO provided TIGTA a list of 70 employees with substantiated willful RRA 98§ 1203(b)(8) or (b)(9) violations between October 1, 2021, and April 1, 2023.37 This list included all employees, current and removed, during that period. As a result, the IRS:
- Removed 20 employees.
- Suspended 47 employees.
For all this disciplinary action, the IRS also was found to have rehired an additional 397 employees and 115 former employees who are current contractors that have previously substantiated conduct or performance or tax noncompliance issues from 2005 to 2022.
The Department of the Treasury did respond to the report and stated that they have taken several steps to mitigate these issues. Time will tell if the Department of Government Efficiency will be better equipped and adept at preventing and discouraging this type of behavior within government agencies.
