Federal Employees Owe $1.03 Billion in
Unpaid Taxes (Ed O'Keefe / Washington Post)
Posted at 06:00 AM ET, 01/23/2012 Washington Post By Ed O'Keefe
(Daniel Acker - BLOOMBERG) Congressional staffers owed about $10.6 million in unpaid
taxes in 2010, a slight increase from the previous year and a growing slice of
the roughly $1 billion owed by federal and postal workers nationwide.
The figures come as
Republican efforts to pass legislation allowing federal agencies to fire tax delinquent federal
employees have slowed and as the White
House continues to crack down on improper payments made by agencies to delinquent government contractors
and federal beneficiaries.
About 98,000
federal, postal and congressional employees owed $1.03 billion in unpaid taxes
at the end of fiscal 2010, according to records provided by the
Internal Revenue Service. The total number of delinquent employees dipped slightly from 2009, but the amount owed jumped by $32 million.
The figures are “totally unacceptable and disrespectful
to hardworking American taxpayers,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz
(R-Utah). “If you’re on the federal payroll, the very least you can do is pay
your taxes.”
Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah). (Image via CBS News) Chaffetz and Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.)
have authored bills that would force federal agencies, the U.S. Postal Service and
congressional offices to fire employees who purposely avoid paying taxes. Exceptions would be
made for employees suffering from family turmoil or working to correct
significant financial hardship. Chaffetz’s bill was
approved by a committee last spring, but Coburn’s
still awaits consideration by a Senate panel.
“Nobody’s going
to take any joy in firing someone,” Chaffetz said in
an interview. “But there’s enough people there that are
simply thumbing their nose at American taxpayers that it’s not acceptable.”
(RELATED: Which federal workers owed taxes in 2010?)
But on Capitol Hill,
684 employees, or almost 4 percent, of the 18,000 congressional staffers owed
taxes in 2010 – a jump of 46 workers from 2009. Four percent of House staffers
owed $8.5 million and 3 percent of Senate employees owed $2.1 million, the IRS
said.
At the Executive
Office of the President – encompassing 1,800 employees of the West Wing, the Office of Management and Budget, the National
Security Council and the Office of U.S. Trade
Representative, among others – 36 staffers,
or 2 percent, owed a $833,970. The amount owed increased by almost $3,000 from
the previous year.
Civilian employees
of the Defense Department — the federal government’s largest employer — fared
the worst. More than 25,600 workers at the departments of the Army, Air Force
and Navy owed a combined $225.7 million, while another 4,600 civilian Pentagon
employees owed $39.4 million.
Among uniformed
military personnel, 2 percent of active-duty troops and 2 percent of reservists
owed a combined $339 million. Three percent of the nation’s 2.1 million retired
military personnel owed $1.6 billion, according to IRS records.
Delinquency
rates topped 3.8 percent at the Department of Education, where 176 workers owed $4.2 million, and at the Department of Housing and Urban
Development, where 391 staffers owed $5
million.
At the U.S. Postal Service, 25,640 employees, or 4 percent of the 667,000-strong
workforce, owed $269.6 million. Figures for USPS dipped from 2009, likely due
in part to ongoing staff reductions.
More than 2,000
employees, or 3 percent, of the Social Security Administration owe $20.1
million in unpaid taxes. Five staffers at the U.S. Tax
Court owed a combined $62,508 and
another five at the Office of Government Ethics owed $22,160. Fewer than 1
percent of Treasury Department employees, including the IRS, owed $9.3 million, the
agency said.
Just under 2 percent of the 1.8 million federal retirees tracked
by the IRS owed $470 million at the end of fiscal 2010.
Overall,
American taxpayers owed $114.2 billion in unpaid taxes, interest and penalties
at the end of fiscal 2010, according to the IRS.
The agency has
tracked tax delinquency among current and retired civilian federal and military
personnel since 1993. Annual reports are compiled for agency heads, but the
listings are only released publicly by lawmakers or upon request by the news
media.
Follow Ed O’Keefe on Twitter: @edatpost