WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Senators Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) and John Thune (R-S.D.) today introduced legislation to prohibit the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) from providing performance awards to employees who owe outstanding federal tax debt or who have violated U.S. tax law.

“Given what we know about recent IRS actions -- and the growing discontent with the agency that I hear every day from Kansans -- continuing to award personnel bonuses to employees who have outstanding tax liabilities or have violated the tax laws is outrageous and should be stopped,” Roberts said. “This isn’t a partisan issue – it’s just commonsense. Until the IRS gets back on course, it should not be in the business of awarding bonuses – particularly to its agents who are unable or unwilling to abide by the tax laws they are directed to uphold.”

“The agency directly entrusted with the mission of making sure Americans pay their taxes should not be rewarding its own employees that are delinquent on their own taxes or have broken the law,” said Enzi. “This revelation just shows how out-of-touch this agency is with the real world and it’s a double standard that should anger every tax payer.”

“It is unconscionable that while the American people spent $168 billion complying with the tax code, many of the IRS employees responsible for collecting federal taxes failed to pay their own taxes,” said Thune. “Even worse, these IRS employees actually received bonuses for their subpar performance. Congress has a responsibility to the American taxpayers to ensure we institute a permanent fix to this egregious behavior by moving forward with our common-sense legislation to prevent the IRS from awarding taxpayer-funded bonuses to employees who have failed to pay their taxes or fulfill their responsibilities.”

At issue is the report from the Treasury Department’s Inspector General for Tax Administration on Internal Revenue Service on bonuses awarded to personnel who have violated the tax laws or who have been subject to serious infractions of employee policy.

According to the Inspector General, close to $3 million was awarded to staff with violations on their records, with about half of that amount going to people with tax violations on their record.

Other personnel at the IRS received cash bonuses or other awards despite being cited for drug use, making violent threats, fraudulently claiming unemployment benefits, and misusing government credit cards.

In fact, the report indicates that close to 70% of IRS personnel receive some sort of performance reward.

The bill (see below for text) the “No Bonuses for Delinquent IRS Employees Act” would:

• prohibit the IRS from providing any performance award to any IRS employee who owes an outstanding federal tax debt;
• block any performance award to an employee who has entered into an installment payment plan for an outstanding tax liability until the payment plan has been completed.

“This is the agency that brought us partisan suppression of free speech, piled onto that with proposed rules to shut down political action by groups they don’t favor, and shares confidential taxpayer information with their allies outside of government,” Roberts went on to say. “And now we know they can break the law they are required to enforce and get a cash bonus and free time off. The Senate should pass our bill and return accountability to the IRS.”

Companion legislation, H.R. 4531, has been introduced in the House by Representative Sam Johnson (R-TX).

Senators Roberts, Enzi and Thune are members of the Senate Committee on Finance.

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