How to Get Fired if you Work for the IRS

As far as I know, an IRS employee can’t be fired just for leaving you on hold for 3 hours, or for giving you bad information that contradicts what the previous IRS employee told you, or for rejecting your Offer in Compromise (as long as procedures are followed). Of course, there could be additional actions and circumstances that might warrant termination, but generally speaking, these are not adequate grounds.

But according to rules established during the 1998 tax code reform, an IRS employee is supposed to be fired for the following actions unless the Commish determines that the employee should be given a second chance due to the presence of mitigating factors:

  • Purposely failing to obtain signatures required prior to certain asset seizures;
  • Lying under oath relevant to matters involving a taxpayer account;
  • destroying or falsifying evidence relevant to matters involving a taxpayer account;
  • Assault or battery of a taxpayer or fellow employee (that’s comforting, knowing that an IRS employee will likely get fired for cold-cocking a taxpayer) — but only if there is a conviction;
  • Purposely violating a provision in the IRC, Regs, IRM, or internal policies for the purpose of retaliating against or harassing a taxpayer or fellow employee;
  • Willful failure to file a tax return or underreporting income on a tax return…

There are others, but this list is getting tedious.  It’s funny to me that some of these prohibitions are related to actions against other IRS employees.  Don’t they get along over at the IRS, or what?

A House Committee has introduced a bill that would add another bullet point to this list above. H.R. 709, the Prevent Targeting at the IRS Act, would require the firing of IRS employees who act in their official capacity to target entities or individuals for personal or political reasons.  And presumably any offending employee would have to be fired regardless of how merciful the Commissioner wants to be.  Thank you Robert Wood for the info on H.R. 709.

In the meantime, I’ll keep an eye out for the Prevent Stupidity at the IRS Act.

IRS Audits and Public Perception

We know there is at least some rhyme or reason to who gets selected for an IRS audits.  If we knew all the criteria, we could position ourselves to avoid audits 100% of the time, but, for obvious reasons, the IRS hasn’t been so generous when it comes to publishing their audit selection criteria or algorithms.  One thing that we can be sure of is the IRS flags tax returns that possess certain risk factors because, if they’re going to spend resources auditing a certain number of returns each year, it might as well be those that are more likely to contain errors or “problems.”

So far, so good.  That much makes sense.  The IRS flags cases that it considers to be good audit material.  But, based on a news story that broke today, maybe the IRS should also be flagging cases that should not be audited.

Of all the “do not audit” entities out there, shouldn’t Logan Clements, the producer of “Sick and Sicker: ObamaCare Canadian Style,” be near the top of the list?  I haven’t seen this film, but I’m gonna guess that Clements is not a big fan of Obama, and not a big fan of the Affordable Care Act.  And I have absolutely no idea about the integrity of his taxes, but it just doesn’t look right for the IRS to audit somebody like this.  Meanwhile, Clements is using the media attention from the audit to catapult his film into the spotlight quite nicely.  I understand the IRS faces a catch 22 here: if they audit this guy, it looks very fishy, but if they let him go, it sets a weird precedent and makes a whole segment of society (notable conservatives) exempt from audits.  In fact, I think a strong case can be made that public perception should not even enter the equation.  But the IRS better hope they find something seriously wrong with this guys taxes.  Or if it turns out to be a “no changes” kind of audit, they had better close it quickly and hope this story fades away quietly.

 

Lerner Emails not so Benign

There are just as many “crazies” in Sacramento as there are in Modesto, you just have to know where to find them.  And there are just as many Democrat crazies as there are Republicans.  After all, craziness knows no race, religion, or political preference.   Same with “—holes.”  In fact, that group may be more common than crazies.

Of course what I’m referring to here is the content of a couple emails that the now-famous Lois Lerner sent to a friend from her government issue Blackberry in 2012.  Her friend brought up the topic of right-wing radio shows and Lerner referred to the hosts and listeners of such shows as “crazies” and “—holes.”  The emails were released on Wednesday and Republican lawmakers see them as proof of Lerner’s disdain for conservatives and proof that she was targeting conservative groups’ tax-exempt status applications for extra scrutiny.

This new evidence clearly demonstrates why Ms. Lerner not only targeted conservatives, but denied such groups their rights to due process and equal protection under the law.

~ Rep. Dave Camp, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee

Just to play the devil’s advocate, because that’s what I like to do, there are a number of ways to rebut the accusation that Lerner is biased against conservatives.  For example, maybe she loves conservatives but dislikes the “whacko wing” of the GOP, as her friend put it.  Maybe she specifically dislikes the small faction of radio whackos in the whacko wing of the GOP.  Maybe it’s only the radio wackos in the whacko wing who actually call in and talk apocalyptically about our beloved ‘Merca and the need to protect her borders, hunker down, buy ammo and food, and prepare for the end.  Maybe that’s who she thinks are the crazy assholes that don’t deserve tax-exempt status.  But even so, I think these emails suggest that she was most likely not being fair and impartial in the discharge of her official duties.