Grassley presses IRS over tax cheat employees

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) wants to know why the IRS hasn’t been firing more employees found to have broken tax law on purpose.

Treasury’s inspector general for tax administration reported recently that three in five IRS employees who willfully violated the law over a decade kept their jobs. Under current law, those employees are supposed to be let go, unless the IRS commissioner decides otherwise.

{mosads}Grassley said Wednesday that the public is astonished that so many IRS staffers who are tax cheats remained employed.

“This is not an unreasonable reaction,” Grassley wrote to the IRS commissioner, John Koskinen.

“Willful violation of tax law is a serious offense and the presumption is an employee guilty of the offense shall be terminated,” Grassley added.

In his letter, Grassley asked the IRS to lay out how they decide not to fire an employee who skirted tax laws. The Treasury inspector general found 1,580 cases between 2004 and 2013 that either understated their tax liability or willfully filed late.