This should enrage all taxpayers (emphasis mine, reformatted):
IRS staffers who owe back taxes will in some cases still be eligible for bonuses next year, the agency said this week.
In a statement, the agency said it would keep employees who willfully skipped out on their taxes from getting performance awards, but would be more forgiving of those who made honest mistakes. John Koskinen, the IRS commissioner, announced a new round of bonuses this week for 2014, to be paid out early next year. “It’s important to remember that not everyone at the IRS is a tax expert — some work in non-tax specific areas in occupations ranging from IT programmers, administrative professionals to human capital specialists,” the IRS told The Hill in a statement this week. “Where employees have been found to have made unintentional tax mistakes, they would generally still be eligible to receive performance awards they have earned.”
How ’bout those that haven’t PAID their taxes – at all? John Koskinen – this is the guy that has waged a one man snark war against the CongressCritters in trying to find out who said and did what in the IRS / Lois Lerner targeting of Conservative / TEA Party groups in denying them tax status given to others. It was clear that he’s stonewalled them – after all, how many months has it been that he’s obfuscated and outright lied about the “missing” Lerner emails that have just magically appeared?
The announcement that staffers who owe back taxes could still collect bonuses angered top Republicans like Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), the incoming chairman of the Finance Committee. GOP lawmakers have already expressed deep opposition to IRS staffers getting bonuses in general, in the aftermath of the agency’s singling out of Tea Party groups. On top of that, lawmakers from both parties had been seeking to stop employees who were delinquent on their taxes from getting performance awards, after a Treasury Department inspector general report from this year said the IRS gave $1 million in bonuses to employees with tax compliance issues over a two-year span.
And then to just stick a finger in the eyes of taxpayers, who mostly DON’T get bonuses, find out that you can act badly as an employee and STILL get more? And it IS the taxpayers paying the bill?
The IRS gave $2.8 million in all in bonuses to employees with conduct issues from October 2010 to December 2012. In the spring, Koskinen said he would work with the National Treasury Employees Union to ensure that staffers with conduct issues didn’t get bonuses. “My view is that employees understand they work for the IRS and are held to a higher standard,” Koskinen said in April. “People ought to be comfortable that if you work for the IRS and I’m chasing you for your taxes, I should pay mine.” Under the agreement worked out between the NTEU and the IRS, employees who violated an agency code of conduct would not be eligible for bonuses.
Yeah, this I’m supposed to believe this? One, that the union isn’t going to just lay down and go “oh, ok – that makes sense”? No, they will do everything within their power to make sure that “pay for conduct” is as about an inconsequential outcomes as the bad teachers in NYC. I’d be looking at that “agreement” with jaded eyes with the intent to find out how many loopholes (as large as some of the sinkholes in Florida, I’m betting) are in that paperwork.
Those violations include willfully evading taxes, threatening an audit for your own personal gain, assaulting a taxpayer and intentionally releasing taxpayer information — “serious misconduct,” as Koskinen told employees this week. So how come Lerner was allowed to retire – and the email recipients she conspired with have still not undergone any kind of disciplinary action? “This is a common-sense approach that underscores the seriousness of these provisions. Employees violating these basic standards should not be eligible for financial awards,” Koskinen added.
His previous words and subsequent actions belie his words. I’ve talked about Trust (e.g., Consistency breeds Trust yields Votes) concerning politicians and candidates; the same standard should be applied to those that are supposed to be public servants. The problem here is that those public servants that act badly are treated far better than those that pay their salaries. Where we would suffer severe and instant consequences in the private sector once discover, these folks seem to have a “protected” status that rises far beyond their actual status.
