IRS Employees With Tax Debt

Posted on August 05, 2014

Should the fox be allowed to watch the henhouse?

Under pending legislation in the U.S. Senate, that may no longer be the case.

Currently, IRS employees are not sanctioned or disciplined if they owe money to the IRS. Under the current scheme, the IRS employee assigned to collect money from you can conceivably also owe money to the IRS himself.

Under the pending legislation, the IRS would be prohibited from hiring or continuing to retain employees that have an IRS debt subject to a federal tax lien. Current federal employees would have 150 days to repay the tax debt. If the employee fails to pay the tax debt within the 150 day period, the employee would have an additional 60 days to repay the tax debt or be fired.

The bill will exempt those who are in an installment agreement with the IRS or who are waiting for a Collection Due Process hearing. The bill also provides a financial hardship exemption if the head of the federal agency for which the employee works determines that the employee’s continued service is in the best interest of the United States.

People applying for jobs with the federal government would also have to certify that they do not have any unpaid tax liability due to the IRS.

Do you think that IRS employees that owe money to the IRS should be allowed to continue to work for the IRS?