Tax-Delinquent Govt. Workers Rewarded With Bonus Pay

As tax day approaches, here’s an enraging story; so many federal workers—especially at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)—blow off paying taxes that legislation has been crafted to ban the offenders from receiving millions of dollars in bonus pay, which of course comes from public funds.

Federal employees were delinquent on $3.4 billion in taxes, according to a federal audit released last year yet Uncle Sam rewarded the violators with millions in bonus pay. At the IRS alone, staff members with violations received close to $3 million in awards on top of their regular salary. Some got the extra cash despite being cited for using drugs, making violent threats, fraudulently claiming unemployment benefits and misusing government credit cards, reveals the U.S. Senator, Pat Roberts of Kansas, who introduced the new law to stop the madness.

“This cannot be tolerated,” said Roberts, a senior member of the Senate Committee on Finance, in a statement. So the lawmaker recently introduced a measure (Federal Employee Tax Accountability Act) to stop the costly fraud, which has long been the norm in government. The law would require federal employees to be current on their income taxes—like the rest of us—and prevent those who are delinquent in paying federal tax liability from receiving a bonus or cash award. It’s pathetic that this culture is so flagrant that a law must be passed to correct it. The respective agencies should simply end this corrupt practice on their own.

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