An audit for the IRS — ironic, right? But, it appears this one turned up some dirt.
“The IRS is facing some criticism this morning.” (Via News 12 Connecticut)
“A week after the IRS deadline, a startling revelation about the IRS.” (Via NBC)
According to a new report, the IRS paid nearly $3 million dollars, from 2010 to 2012, to employees facing disciplinary problems at work. (Via KTNV)
The kicker? About $1 million of that was given to around 1,100 employees who are reportedly in trouble over tax-related issues.
As CNN reports, those tax-related issues include “willful understatement of tax liabilities, late payments and under-reporting of income.”
Which sounds to us like cheating on your taxes.
The study was done by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, who, as the Los Angeles Times reports, came to this rather understandable conclusion. (Via C-SPAN)
“Providing awards to employees who have been disciplined for failing to pay federal taxes appears to create a conflict with the IRS’s charge of ensuring the integrity of the system of tax administration.”
Quoting the report, CBS says the problem is this:
“The IRS does not consider tax compliance or other misconduct when issuing performance awards.”
As The Washington Post reports, the IRS is working to fix the issue by “developing a policy linking conduct to performance awards.”
This isn’t the only bad press for the tax agency in recent months though. Last year the IRS took heat for allegedly singling out tax exempt conservative and tea party groups for closer scrutiny. (Via WJLA)
As Fox News reports the 1,100 employees with tax-related problems were also granted more than 10,000 hours in time-off rewards. Around 100,000 workers were employed by the IRS during the period of the review.
