A new report from the U.S. Treasury Inspector General has found that “poor screening” led to the IRS re-hiring “hundreds of former employees with records of bad behavior including falsifying forms and unauthorized access to taxpayer information.”
And we aren’t talking about a few folks who slipped through the system. We are talking about 323 former employees who “had displayed unsavory conduct during prior stints at the agency.”
The audit of the IRS looked at 7,000 employees re-hired to fill “mostly” temporary positions.
Among the 323, five of the rehired workers had “serious misconduct” issues, a category that includes threats and sexual harassment. Another five had willfully failed to file federal tax returns. Seventeen falsified employment forms or other documents.
What the hell?
Would any American tax-payer be given such leniency?
“Based on the types of prior performance and conduct issues we identified, rehiring certain employees presents increased risk to the IRS and taxpayers,” said J. Russell George, the inspector general for tax administration.
Yeah, I guess so. Isn’t unauthorized access to taxpayer records a crime?
In the Agency’s response to the report, IRS Human Capital Officer Daniel Riorden barfed-out some kind of gibberish claiming the agency does conduct background checks. He said that some “issues” are so old they don’t pose a risk. I wonder what “issues” don’t pose a risk. Un-authorized snooping in taxpayer records? Issuing threats? Sexual harassment?
“IRS already fully considers prior conduct and performance issues before the final job offer is issued to all new hires,” he said.
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