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Watchdog: 61 percent of IRS workers who violated tax laws kept jobs

By Danielle Haynes
Douglas Shulman was commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service during many of the years in which 61 percent of tax scofflaws kept their IRS jobs. File photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI
Douglas Shulman was commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service during many of the years in which 61 percent of tax scofflaws kept their IRS jobs. File photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI | License Photo

WASHINGTON, May 6 (UPI) -- Sixty-one percent of Internal Revenue Service employees who violated tax laws were penalized but kept their jobs with the agency, a watchdog organization said.

The report, released April 14 by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), found that between fiscal years 2004 and 2013, 1,580 IRS employees broke tax laws. Of those, 960 were penalized with suspensions, reprimands or counseling, but didn't lose their jobs. The other 620 employees did.

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While the law says IRS employees should be fired for willfully violating tax law, the IRS commissioner has the authority to give a lesser penalty. Still, after reviewing a sample of 34 cases, TIGTA found employees with the same violations were given varying penalties.

"Some employees had significant and sometimes repeated tax noncompliance issues, and a history of other conduct issues. Moreover, management had concluded that the employees were not credible. Nonetheless, the proposed terminations were mitigated by the IRS commissioner," the report said. "These cases included willful overstatement of expenses, claiming the first-time homebuyer tax credit without buying a home, and repeated failure to file required federal tax returns timely."

TIGTA recommended that in the future, the commissioner document the reasons for choosing or not choosing to mitigate penalties for such employees.

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