Treasury Watchdog Agrees to Investigate Status of Tax Cheaters Working for the IRS: Ernst

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) said on Sept. 14 that the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) has agreed to update a 2019 investigation that found hundreds of IRS employees with overdue or unpaid tax bills.

Ernst made public an Aug. 30 letter she received from TIGTA J. Russell George agreeing with her request that he launch the new probe. A copy of the George letter was made available to The Epoch Times.

“Based on your request, TIGTA is initiating a review to follow up on our previous audit work regarding IRS employee tax compliance and the IRS’s rehiring of former employees with conduct and performance issues,” George told Ernst.

The new review will examine how many current IRS employees “are not fully compliant on their federal tax obligations,” as well as how current employees were rehired after being previously separated or allowed to resign for “failure to fully pay their taxes owed.”

The review will include TIGTA recommendations to remedy “any control weaknesses identified during the review.”

Ernst said her request for the inquiry into IRS employment practices was prompted by TIGTA’s previous audit that found the federal tax agency had identified a total of 1,250 employees about whom there were questions over their taxes, and whether return errors were innocent mistakes or willful violations.

“TIGTA estimates that IRS management did not properly determine willfulness in 530 (42 percent) of the 1,250 cases closed in FY 2017,” the 2019 report said. “TIGTA also found that, in seven cases, IRS management did not include required documentation to support the determination of willfulness.”

The report also said auditors estimated that in 177 additional instances, or 14 percent of the total, IRS managers “did not include [other] required documentation” of the facts in the cases.

Such failures could indicate that IRS officials either imposed

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