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Over a quarter-million federal workers fail to pay taxes
By LANCE GAY
Scripps Howard News Service
June 15, 2001
WASHINGTON - IRS records show that 340,000 federal government employees or
retirees getting government pensions last year owed a total of $2.5 billion
in unpaid taxes.
That number includes 2,975 federal workers who were employed by the IRS
itself, which operates under a 1998 law that says IRS employees can be
reprimanded if they are found making an intentional error that results in
underpayment of taxes, or fired if they are found to be negligent in paying
their taxes.
All federal employees are currently covered by ethics laws, adopted in 1992,
that require them to pay their taxes as a condition of their continued
employment.
Employees shall satisfy in good faith their obligations as citizens,
including all just financial obligations, especially those such as federal,
state or local taxes that are imposed by law, the regulations state.
A review of IRS records, conducted by the congressional General Accounting
Office this year, found that the rate of noncompliance among more than 8
million federal employees and retirees was about 5 percent. There was a 7
percent noncompliance rate among the general public. The IRS estimates the
total of unpaid taxes is $240 billion.
Jeffrey Steinhoff, managing director for the GAO's financial management
staff, noted there are more stringent requirements for federal employees than
for the general public.
If the general public perceives that federal workers and annuitants can
successfully evade their tax obligations, voluntary compliance - the
foundation of the U.S. tax system - could be eroded, he said.
The GAO said the lack of any regular federal withholding of income taxes on
federal retirement checks seems to be the reason that 20 percent of federal
retirees failed to file. The retirees accounted for 54 percent of the total
number of tax delinquents among federal employees.
Among the findings:
- 36 percent of the cases were delinquent for more than one year.
- 29 percent of the cases involved $1.4 billion in uncollected taxes assessed
before 1995.
- About 2,300 government employees or retirees had been found willfully
responsible for failing to pay the proper amount of taxes, resulting in a
total of $155 million in IRS penalty assessments. One of these cases involved
a federal retiree who failed to send in withholding taxes collected from
employees of two businesses he ran.
Rep. Jim Turner, R-Texas, who requested the report, said while the federal
tax evasion rate is lower than the general public, it's not low enough.
These are the same people that are getting monthly paychecks from the
government, and yet they have managed to skip out on their taxes. A private
business would never stand for this, and the government needs to strive for
that same efficiency, he said.
IRS Commissioner Charles Rossotti said his agency last year streamlined the
accounting procedures for federal employees, and is looking at new
educational programs to reduce tax delinquency rates among federal employees.
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