Federal Employees Owed OVER $1 Billion in Unpaid Taxes

When has it been all right for employees to break and bend the rules that the federal government enforces on all American people? Apparently ever since they started working for the federal government.

According to records coming from the IRS, congressional staffers owed around $10.6 million in unpaid taxes in 2010. And that's an increase from the previous year, but yet not even a sliver of the growing total of $1.03 billion in unpaid taxes these federal employees have racked up.

If this isn't a clear indication that our government has some serious issues, I don't know what is. This irresponsibility doesn't seem to have comparison in any other work related issue.

About 98,000 federal, postal and congressional employees' total of $1.03 billion in unpaid taxes at the end of fiscal 2010 is atrocious, but the total number of delinquent employees dropped from 2009. 

Some government representatives are taking a stand against this, like Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R- Utah) who remarked that it was “totally unacceptable and disrespectful to hardworking American taxpayers. If you're on the federal payroll, the very least you can do is pay your taxes. Nobody's going to take any joy in firing someone, but there's enough people there that are simply thumbing their nose at American taxpayers that it's not acceptable.”

Chaffetz and Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) have authored bills that would force federal agencies, congressional offices and U.S. Postal service to fire employees who purposely avoid paying taxes.

But here's the kicker, exceptions would be made for employees suffering from family turmoil or working to correct significant financial hardship. Isn't the majority of the U.S. Postal Service “working to correct significant financial hardship?”

Chaffetz's bill was approved by a committee last year, but Coburn's bill is still awaiting consideration from a Senate panel.

I don't mean to sound heartless, but it seems a little unfair. Technically there is no law that says that if you've collected a federal paycheck you must pay federal taxes, but proposals have been made to make it a law. But why hasn't it gone through? This trend of simply not paying up is continuing to keep our nation in debt.

Here's how the figures break down: on Capitol Hill, 684 employees, or almost 4%, of the 18,000 congressional staffers owed taxes in 2010, which is a jump of 46 workers from 2009.

According to the IRS, 4% of House staffers owed $8.5 million and 3% of Senate employees owed $2.1 million.

From The Washington Post,

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.

Here is the list of the rest of the departments with significant delinquency issues:

U.S Postal Service: 25,650 employees (4% of the 667,000-strong workforce) owed $269.6 million. Figures are lower than of 2009, which is mostly due to staff reductions.

Department of Education: 176 employees owed $4.2 million

Department of Housing and Urban Development: 391 employees owed $5 million

Uniformed military personnel: 2% of active-duty troops and 2% of reservists owed a combined $339 million. 3% of the United States' 2.1 million retired military personnel owed $1.6 billion.

Social Security Administration: 2,000 employees (3%) owed $20.1 million in unpaid taxes.

??U.S. Tax Court: Five employees owed a combined $62,508

Office of Government Ethics (ironic?): Five employees owed $22,160 in unpaid taxes.

Treasury Department: Fewer than 1% of employees, including the IRS, owed $9.3 million.

A little under 2% of the 1.8 million federal retirees tracked by the IRS owed $470 million at the end of fiscal 2010.

Overall, taxpayers in America owed $114.2 billion in unpaid taxes, interest and penalties at the end of the fiscal year 2010. Since 1993, the IRS has tracked tax delinquency among current and retired civilian federal and military personnel while annual reports are compiled for agency heads, but the listings are only released publicly by lawmakers or upon request by the news media.

For something that is a civic duty, it doesn't seem to be too civilly handled and completed. So what makes us feel like we should be paying our taxes as regular Americans while those who should model utmost civic responsibility are neglecting it?