Washington, D.C. – Today, House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Oversight Chairman Charles Boustany (R-LA) sent a letter to IRS Commissioner John Koskinen highlighting his concerns with the time and money the IRS spends annually on National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) activity.  The IRS has estimated that in Fiscal Year 2013, taxpayers funded over $20 million and over 500,000 work hours of union activity.  The letter is in response to a chain of email correspondence recently discovered by the Committee in which former Exempt Organizations Director Lois Lerner details an IRS special projects employee that, though receiving an annual salary of more than $100,000, spent the year “doing nothing” while “reporting to her manager on timesheets” that she was working “full time.”
 
This latest discovery raises more red flags as to whether the IRS exercises even basic competence in managing personnel and whether it can be trusted with taxpayer funds.  In the letter, Chairman Boustany stated: “No small business in America could keep its doors open if it paid employees for doing nothing.  An employee that sought payment for work claimed, but never performed, would be subject to severe disciplinary action, if not immediate termination.  This is further evidence of an out of control IRS.”  The letter seeks additional information to better assess the extent of this problem.
 
The full letter can be viewed here.

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