Tag Archives: IRS
IRS Rehires 213 Employees Ousted for Falsifying Documents, Avoiding Taxes, Other Offenses
By Fred Lucas • The Daily Signal
The Internal Revenue Service rehired 213 employees who ducked taxes, falsified documents, were convicted of theft, or made unauthorized use of taxpayer data, an inspector general's report says.
The Office of Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, which also first discovered the IRS' targeting of conservative groups in 2013, examined the agency's hiring from January 2015 through March 2016.
For these 15 months, the IRS official in charge was Commissioner John Koskinen, an appointee of President Barack Obama. Continue reading →
Tags: Government Corruption, IRS, IRS Scandal, John Koskinen
Fire the IRS chief already, Mr. President
By Post Editorial Board • New York Post
Why is IRS Commissioner John Koskinen still in office? A growing number of Capitol Hill Republicans want to know — and they have good reason to be troubled.
When he took over in 2013, Koskinen was supposed to "fix" the IRS — and in particular get to the bottom of the scandal in which the agency deliberately held up approvals for 75 conservative and Tea Party groups that had applied for legitimate tax exemptions.
Instead, what Congress and the public got from him was obstruction, open defiance and a refusal to discipline anyone at the agency. Indeed, he seemed most concerned with running interference to shield the Obama administration from any embarrassment. Continue reading →
Tags: IRS, IRS Scandal, John Koskinen
Two Years Later, IRS Locates 6,924 Documents Related to Tea Party Targeting
by Ali Meyer • Washington Free Beacon
The Internal Revenue Service has located 6,924 documents potentially related to the targeting of Tea Party conservatives, two years after the group Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit for them.
The watchdog group intended to find records regarding how the IRS selected individuals and organizations for audits that were requesting nonprofit tax status.
The agency will not say when it will make the documents available to the public. Continue reading →
Tags: Government Corruption, IRS, IRS Scandal, Liberal Tactics
Koskinen's IRS Failed to Search Five of Six Locations for Lois Lerner Emails
by Alexander Hendrie • Americans for Tax Reform
IRS Commissioner John Koskinen will appear before the House Judiciary Committee to defend himself against impeachment charges following his role in the Lois Lerner targeting scandal.
Koskinen was appointed to lead the IRS after promising to bring transparency and openness to the embattled agency. He has failed.
The IRS failed to search five of six possible sources of electronic media for Lois Lerner's emails, according to documentation released by the House Oversight Committee in July 2015.
Over the course of investigations into the Lois Lerner targeting scandal, Commissioner John Koskinen repeatedly assured Congress that he would provide all of Lois Lerner's emails. But based on testimony from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), this did not occur. The agency's ineptness — or corruption — resulted in 24,000 Lerner emails being lost when they were "accidently" destroyed. Continue reading →
IRS Finds Missing Hard Drive Related to Controversial Hiring of Elite Law Firm
The IRS now says it has recovered a hard drive belonging to a former top employee, months after the agency admitted it had erased the data despite the existence of a preservation order.
The hard drive belonged to the agency's former director of transfer pricing operations at the IRS Large Business and International Division, likely a key employee involved in the agency's controversial, taxpayer-funded hiring of elite white shoe law firm Quinn Emanuel.
Earlier this year, the IRS quietly announced it had erased this hard drive, despite a preservation order borne from a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
Under pressure from Congressional investigators, IRS chief John Koskinen last month said that the agency had discovered a backup of the employees' hard drive. Now, the agency has changed its story a third time, saying it has discovered the employee's hard drive.
Given the constant feet dragging and changing stories, it is likely the IRS would never have recovered this hard drive without pressure from Congressional investigators.
While this story again proves the ineptitude of the IRS, of bigger concern to taxpayers should be the agency's decision to hire an elite law firm to perform audits. There is no reason the agency should be hiring costly outside counsel that has zero experience protecting sensitive, confidential taxpayer data.
Unfortunately, this is exactly what happened when the agency hired elite law firm Quinn Emanuel under an initial $2.2 million contract despite the firm having never even conducted an audit.
Not only is this wasteful, it is also unnecessary. The IRS already has access to around 40,000 employees responsible for enforcement. The IRS can also turn to the office of Chief Counsel or a Department of Justice attorney, both of which have the expertise to conduct this kind of work, without risking sensitive information.
This hiring decision was described as "troubling" by a federal judge and prompted a probe by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah).
Ultimately, while this decision appears to be reckless and unnecessary, it appears not to break any laws.
But regardless, the IRS should not be allowed to spend taxpayer resources on an unqualified trial law firm given the agencies record failing to safeguard taxpayer data and using its power to target taxpayers for their political beliefs.
Tags: Government Corruption, IRS, IRS Scandal
Americans Will Spend More Than 8 Billion Hours and $409 Billion Complying With Tax Code in 2016
IRS tax code totals 2.4 million words and additional regulations total 7.7 million words
Americans will spend more than 8.9 billion hours and $409 billion complying with the tax code in 2016, according to a report from the Tax Foundation.
"One often overlooked issue in tax reform is complexity," the report states. "For decades, the tax code has become more and more detailed, with thousands of additional pages of statutes, regulations, and case law. This added complexity imposes a real cost on the U.S. economy."
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) tax code in 1995 totaled 409,000 words and since then it has increased to a total of 2.4 million words.
In addition to the tax code, there are 7.7 million words of tax regulations and there are 60,000 pages of tax-related case law, which accountants and tax lawyers use to decide how much their clients must pay. Continue reading →
Tags: IRS, tax code, Tax Policy
Suit: IRS Colluded With Union To Delete Records, Broke Federal Law
by Ethan Barton • Daily Caller
A government accountability group is suing the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Commissioner John Koskinen for allegedly violating federal law by regularly deleting official records as part of an agreement with its government employee union.
The IRS has an agreement with the National Treasury Employees Union that prohibits the agency from saving any instant message records of its employees, documents obtained by Cause of Action Institute – the group suing the IRS – show.
Federal laws, however, require the agency to preserve such records. The federal tax agency has been the focus of a continuing scandal.
"The IRS and Commissioner Koskinen have a legal obligation to preserve official work communications between employees," Cause of Action Institute President and CEO Alfred J. Lechner Jr. said in a statement. "It appears that federal records are being deleted because the IRS, in a deal with its employee union, refuses to preserve certain types of electronic communications." Continue reading →
Federal judge calls IRS untrustworthy in tea party case
By Stephen Dinan • The Washington Times
A federal judge said the IRS isn't to be trusted as he and his colleagues tried Thursday to figure out whether the tax agency is still targeting tea party groups for intrusive and illegal scrutiny.
Judge David B. Sentelle of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said there is strong evidence that the IRS violated the constitutional rights of the groups when it delayed their nonprofit status applications and asked inappropriate questions about their political beliefs.
The agency's insistence that it has retrained employees and instructed managers to behave better did not mollify the judges, who said past IRS behavior doesn't lend itself to the benefit of the doubt.
"It's hard to find the IRS to be an agency we can trust," Judge Sentelle said. Continue reading →
Tags: Government Corruption, Government Intimidation, IRS, IRS Scandal
Rep. Kristi Noem: IRS Is Rehiring Employees Fired for Misconduct
by Susan Jones • CNSNews.com
House Republicans are aiming at the Internal Revenue Service this week, taking up four bills to ensure integrity in hiring and better customer service.
"We have recently learned…that IRS employees that have been fired for misconduct have been rehired" in the last several years, Rep. Kristi Noem (R-S.D.) told a news conference on Tuesday.
"Now some of this may involve falsifying documents — they failed to pay their own taxes. They may have been fired for accessing sensitive taxpayer information without permission. In fact, one employee had missed up to eight weeks of work without permission, had actually stamped on their personnel file, 'Do not rehire' — and the IRS chose to rehire them."
Noem said Congress gave the IRS an opportunity to address the issue, and "they have stated that their policies are fine and are currently working for them." Continue reading →
IRS Has Answered Only 15.6 Percent of Calls This Tax Filing Season
Audit finds increasing problems with customer service and tax fraud
The IRS has answered only 15.6 percent of customer service calls during the 2016 tax-filing season so far, according to testimony from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.
As of Feb. 27, 2016, there were 40.5 million attempted calls on toll-free assistance lines to contact the IRS. Agents answered only 6.3 million calls, or 15.6 percent of the total. After the call was routed to the call center, customers waited on the phone for 9.6 minutes before they were able to speak with an agent.
"For the IRS toll-free lines, there have been long customer wait times, resulting in abandoned calls, and customers redialing," states the inspector general. "Despite other available options most taxpayers continue to use the telephone as the primary method to contact the IRS." Continue reading →
Tags: bureaucracy, Government Corruption, IRS, IRS Scandal
The IRS backs down: How your voice made a difference, America
By Jay Sekulow • FoxNews.com
Americans spoke out. And the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) listened.
A new regulation proposed by the IRS would have some nonprofit charities report the Social Security numbers of donors giving at least $250 in one year. The regulation would permit, but not require, charitable organizations to file a new, separate information return (in addition to the Form 990) to substantiate covered contributions. The new informational return would require the charity to collect an individual donor's name, address, and Social Security number, and provide a copy to the donor.
I first sounded the alarm about this problematic issue last month. At the American Center for Law and Justice, we strongly opposed this regulation, filing comments with the IRS explaining why such a move would be damaging by undermining consumer and taxpayer protections, and likely result in reduced charitable giving.
Many others opposed the proposed regulation, too. Nearly 38,000 people filed comments online – the vast majority opposing the move. Continue reading →
Tags: Democracy, Government Abuse, Government Corruption, IRS, IRS Scandal
IRS Erases Hard Drive Despite Court Order
The IRS erased a hard drive belonging to a former top employee involved in the agency's controversial, taxpayer-funded hiring of elite trial law firm Quinn Emanuel.
Although there was a court preservation order on all documents related to the IRS hiring of the outside firm, the hard drive was erased anyway. The order was borne of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request submitted by Microsoft.
Even though the white shoe law firm has zero experience handling sensitive tax data, taxpayers have been footing bills of over $1,000 per hour for its services. Continue reading →
Tags: Government Abuse, Government Corruption, IRS, IRS Scandal
The IRS Is Up to No Good
The IRS is abusing its authority once again by employing the help of a private law firm in its case against Microsoft.
By Peter Roff • USNews
If there is one federal agency that has clearly run amok during the Obama administration, it's the United States Internal Revenue Service. From the harassment of tea party groups applying for nonprofit status to the defiance of congressional subpoenas, it's an agency badly in need of a thorough housecleaning.
IRS Commissioner John Koskinen is already under threat of impeachment by the U.S. House of Representatives. That might be a good start, but removing him won't fix the problems any more than the ouster of his predecessor did. The problems run too deep. Congress needs to act, not just by stepping up oversight of the tax collectors but by jerking their chain and narrowing their authority.
From top to bottom the agency is engaged in a wholesale abuse of its authority – and is defying attempts to investigate what it has been doing. Groups on the right are still reportedly having their applications for tax-exempt status slow-walked through the process. Confidential data is still leaking out and the auditing process is out of control. Continue reading →
Tags: accountability, Corruption, Government Corruption, IRS, IRS Scandal, Taxes
IRS Issued $46 Million in Erroneous Tax Refunds
$230.4 million at risk over next five years
by Elizabeth Harrington • Washington Free Beacon
The Internal Revenue Service issued more than $46 million in erroneous tax refunds due to a computer glitch and ineffective monitoring, issues that left uncorrected could cost taxpayers up to $230 million over the next five years.
The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) released an audit Monday faulting the IRS for approving thousands of potentially fraudulent tax refunds in 2013.
"TIGTA identified that because of a programming error, over $27 million of refunds were erroneously issued for 13,043 Tax Year 2013 tax returns," the audit said. "The programming error is overriding the IRS's two-week processing delay on some refund tax returns that are identified by the IRS as potentially fraudulent." Continue reading →
Tags: accountability, IRS
IRS gains power to revoke tax scofflaws' passports
by Russ Wiles • USAToday
It might be wise to pay your overdue income taxes before packing for that European river cruise.
A new enforcement provision passed by Congress and signed into law earlier this month allows the government to revoke the passports of seriously delinquent tax scofflaws — people who owe more than $50,000 to Uncle Sam.
"You could be on your honeymoon and they could revoke your passport," said Tom Wheelwright, a certified public accountant and chief executive officer at ProVision Wealth Strategists in Tempe, Ariz.
Some details still need to be worked out, but the new passport rule indicates the government wants to get serious about collecting unpaid tax debts. The IRS reported 12.4 million delinquent accounts owing nearly $131 billion in assessed taxes, interest and penalties in 2014. Continue reading →
Tags: Government Corruption, IRS, State Department