Here’s a statistic that may (or may not!) shock you: Capitol Hill employees owed $9.3 million in back taxes last year. According to the Washington Post, 638 staffers owe money to the IRS, with an average tax bill of $12,787 in the Senate and $15,498 in the House. And the amount of that debt is growing…faster than the government’s overall tax debt.
While the IRS data does not list name, party or job title, it raises the question of obligation and whether or not Members of Congress and their staffs should be held to a higher standard. They’re writing the tax laws and urging citizens to demonstrate personal fiscal responsibility, so yes, there is clearly some hypocrisy here – but how far do we go to crack down on delinquencies?
Representative Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) says federal workers should be fired if they owe back taxes unless they are on a payment plan with the IRS. He introduced H.R. 4735 that would “terminate the employment of current federal employees and prohibit the hiring of future federal employees who have a seriously delinquent tax debt.” The bill doesn’t appear to be all that popular with Members (I wonder why) given that nine Republicans and zero Democrats have signed their name to the legislation, but I commend Representative Chaffetz for taking a stand on this issue.
Unfortunately, Capitol Hill workers aren’t the only ones falling behind. The same Washington Post article reports that three workers at the Office of Government Ethics owed a combined $75,000 at the end of 2009 and 41 employees at the Executive Office of the President owed $831,000. And here’s an even bigger picture: 100,000 federal civilian employees owed $962 million in unpaid federal income taxes in 2008.
While tax delinquency may be a nationwide trend in the current economic climate, it’s a problem that cannot continue to go unaddressed. There’s no doubt that times are tough, but most American families are cutting back and reprioritizing budgets to ensure their taxes are paid in full. Capitol Hill employees should be doing the same. After all, they’re on the government’s payroll and work for the public, for you! That automatically calls for a higher degree of accountability.