The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) found 496 employees who received paychecks from large accounting firms or companies “either prior to joining, during their time at, or after leaving the IRS.”
The report comes after Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) asked TIGTA to look into the “revolving door” between the IRS and the accounting industry.
“The questions raised by giant accounting firms’ use of the revolving door to benefit their clients falls squarely within your missions to ‘promote economy, efficiency and effectiveness’ and ‘prevent and detect fraud and abuse’ in the programs and operations of the Treasury Department and IRS,” the lawmakers told the watchdog.
But the revolving door may only be part of the architecture of corporate influence in the agency.
The New York Times previously revealed the practice of top accounting firms dispatching lawyers to Treasury to write business-friendly rules.
TIGTA seemed to acknowledge such behavior in its report on Tuesday, noting, “Processes are in place to identify and address potential conflicts of interest in large corporate tax administration.”
In response to the report, the IRS said it needs the expertise of private-sector tax professionals to do its job,and to effectively utilize new funding to collect more taxes from wealthy individuals and companies.
“Effective tax administration for this segment of the population necessitates having a highly skilled and experienced workforce that can successfully conduct complex audits of large corporations,” Holly O. Paz, acting commissioner of the IRS’s large business and international division, wrote.
“In addition to the knowledge and talent that these individuals bring to the IRS, they come to the IRS sensitized to potential conflicts of interest.”
The Hill’s Tobias Burns has more here.
