Bill in Consideration Will Allow Government to Fire Federal Tax Cheats
There has been a legislation that was reintroduced this week by a House lawmaker that will allow the government to fire federal employees that do not pay their taxes.
This same legislation was passed by the house this past summer in a bipartisan vote; however, the legislation died in the Senate. Representative Jason Chaffetz brought life to the bill and guided it through the House during the 112th Congress.
The legislation presented would be applicable to executive and legislative branch workers, in addition to those working at the Postal Service who fail to pay taxes or haven’t settled on an agreement with the government to repay their debt. This same bill will also prevent the government from hiring people with severe tax debt. Severe tax debt is defined as an outstanding debt to the federal government where a public lien had needed to be filed. Currently, Internal Revenue Service employees are the only ones that will be fired for failing to keep up with their taxes.
Chaffetz mentioned on the debate room floor that the employees who are willing to make an effort to pay back the taxes will not get fired. Looking at a report from the IRS, there have been more than 98,000 federal employees that owed over $1 billion in unpaid federal income taxes in the year 2010. In addition, retired civilians had a tax debt of about $470 million, and over 83,000 military veterans had owed close to $1.6 billion in unpaid taxes in the year 2010.
