Did you really think IRS employees are honest about their own taxes?
At least 5,800 IRS employees and contractors owe almost $50 million in overdue taxes and more than half of them haven’t been required to agree to a payment plan, according to the Department of the Treasury’s Inspector-General for Tax Administration (TIGTA).
In a report made available to The Epoch Times, TIGTA said auditors found 3,414, or 4 percent, of the 85,359 employees at the IRS have unpaid taxes. Of those with payment plans, $9 million remains unpaid, while $12 million is owed by employees without a payment plan.
Among IRS contractors, which include many former tax agency employees, 2,573 of 25,732 (10 percent) contractors have unpaid taxes. Of those without a payment plan, $17 million is owed and those with a payment plan have $8 million outstanding.
I’m reasonably certain that those discovered are the tip of a much larger iceberg. But why ought we to expect anything else? They’re paid from our taxes. They surely don’t need to “pay themselves,” right?
Have a snippet from a novel I greatly enjoyed. It concerns the IRS’s summons of protagonist Dan Martin to an income tax audit:
On the appointed day and time, Mr. Lewis and I appeared at the IRS office, waited to be collected by Mrs. Liu who eventually called us into her office.
Mrs. Liu had a Chinese accent, which meant I had to listen carefully and replay over what she said to understand her.
Apparently, the IRS allows tax preparers to accompany people like me to an audit, but don’t have to allow tax attorneys, and once Mrs. Liu established who Mr. Lewis was, and what he did, she asked him to leave.
“You have to go,” she said in a peremptory manner, a brusqueness common to the Chinese.
“Let’s go, Mr. Martin,” he said as he rose. “He have to stay,” she barked.
“No, he does not,” Jay told her.
“This is an audit. Not court,” she told him.
“Fine. See you in court,” he replied and I got up to accompany him out.
“Okay, you can stay,” she acquiesced.
We settled down.
Mrs. Liu asked me a series of questions about my tax form information, which Mr. Lewis proceeded to answer for me, but with a few tweaks.
“Now, regarding your question about any additional income, even small amounts, tell me this, I once won a $50 dollar bet against my father-in-law, should I have reported that on my income tax form? Did I break the law by not doing so? If Mr. Martin loaned a man fifty dollars with a charge of twenty for interest, and was paid back, would he have to declare that amount, too?”
Mrs. Liu stared at him.
“I’m serious. Do we violate the law if we don’t report small amounts?”
“Nobody going to check on that,” she told him dismissively. “Then why did you ask about whether Mr. Martin has received any small miscellaneous funds?”
“It is my job to ask.”
“Do you gamble Mrs. Liu?” She hesitated to answer.
“Do you report all your winnings on your tax form?”
“It is not your business what I do,” she told him.
“But it is the IRS’s business if you fail to report your occasional winnings, and that of your husband and children, isn’t that true?”
“None of your business,” she insisted becoming angry.
“The government’s, though. Mrs. Liu, if someone were to inform the IRS, a whistleblower say, that you’ve been failing to report all your income, and that of your husband and relatives, to your own employer, the IRS, what would your supervisor say or do about that?”
“What is your point?” she glared.
“Why is Mr. Martin here? Why is he being audited? His records are simple and straightforward as you can see,” he gestured to the array of tax filings before her.
She stared at him.
“Mrs. Liu, is it possible that you are the part owner of a Chinese restaurant on Broadway with your uncle, Peter Chu? Is the IRS aware of your return on investment? And how many other members of your family are also connected to the enterprise?”
Her jaw dropped.
“You may not know this, but a number of Americans don’t like the IRS, and are particularly incensed when its employees violate the laws they enforce upon others. The Sacramento Bee might be interested in a story like that. Mrs. Liu, I’m asking you again. Why is Mr. Martin being audited?”
She thought it over for a minute.
“There has been a complaint, information given that Mr. Martin has not been accurate in his taxes paid.”
“Who informed?”
“I can’t say.”
“Who informed?”
She pressed her lips tightly together.
“Zachary Brewster.”
“Will that be all, Mrs. Liu?”
She nodded sharply. And we left.
If only there were more people and organizations willing to defy the IRS. I mean, if their own employees can do so and largely get away with it, then why not?
