The Rules Should Apply Equally To Everyone

On Wednesday, the Washington Examiner reported that Internal Revenue Service (IRS) employees who cheated on their taxes were promoted–not punished.

The article reports on the finding of the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration:

Nearly one-third of the employees from 2008 to 2013 caught cheating on their taxes received at least one bonus or raise within a year of being disciplined, investigators reported. These rewards include nearly $145,000 in bonuses, almost 900 hours of time-off awards and 30 temporary and permanent promotions.

…”Some employees had significant and sometimes repeated tax noncompliance issues, and a history of other conduct issues,” the report said. “Moreover, management had concluded that the employees were not credible. Nonetheless, the proposed terminations were mitigated by the IRS Commissioner.”

Federal law requires that IRS employees guilty of intentional tax law violations must be terminated, unless mitigated by the IRS commissioner. Since the IRS doesn’t have a policy to document the reason why intentional tax violators aren’t fired, it was unclear why the employees received lesser discipline.

It is time for Congress to come up with a tax code that abolishes the IRS. Aside from becoming political, which it was never supposed to be, it has also lost any moral bearing it might have had.