"With two subpoenas and three preservation orders in place, under Mr. Koskinen's watch the IRS destroyed 422 backup tapes containing potentially 24,000 emails relevant to the IRS targeting of conservative organizations," Jordan said. "This is unacceptable." 
The IRS — whose Tea Party-targeting scandal is now over 1,100 days old without anyone being charged or sent to jail — seems to have a habit of ”accidentally” destroying hard drives containing potentially incriminating evidence.
It has done so in spite of court orders, in spite of Congressional inquiries and in spite of pretty much everyone’s belief that these “accidents” were actually the deliberate, illegal destruction of incriminating evidence to protect the guilty. -Glenn Reynolds
A year into congressional investigations of IRS targeting, we know two things beyond a doubt. We know from the public record that starting in 2010 the most powerful leaders of the Democratic Party—President Obama, Senate chairmen, House Democrats—ran a ceaseless campaign pressuring the IRS to silence conservative groups. -Kim Strassel, WSJ
Crime, Government, Incompetence, Financial, Fraud, Oops, Immigration
The IRS has discovered more than 1 million Americans whose Social Security numbers were stolen by illegal immigrants, but officials never bothered to tell the taxpayers themselves, the agency’s inspector general said in a withering new report released Tuesday.
Investigators first alerted the IRS to the problem five years ago, but it’s still not fixed, the inspector general said, and a pilot program meant to test a solution was canceled — and fell woefully short anyway. As a result, most taxpayers don’t learn that their identities have been stolen and their Social Security files may be screwed up.
“Taxpayers identified as victims of employment-related identity theft are not notified,” the inspector general said.
Government, Incompetence, Financial, Oops
A surprising number of IRS employees are sending unencrypted emails containing personal taxpayer information to private accounts, putting that information at risk of being stolen, the agency’s inspector general said Thursday.
Auditors found hundreds of unencrypted emails sent that risked leaking taxpayers’ personal information, after running through a random sample of 80 employees’ emails from the IRS’s small business/self employed division for four weeks in 2015. Extrapolated over a year, that could mean more than 1.1 million emails, covering more than 28 million taxpayers’ information, could have been sent by the division.
Crime, Government, Incompetence, Fraud, Oops, Immigration, Theft
The IRS has discovered more than 1 million Americans whose Social Security numbers were stolen by illegal immigrants, but officials never bothered to tell the taxpayers themselves, the agency’s inspector general said in a withering new report released Tuesday.
Investigators first alerted the IRS to the problem five years ago, but it’s still not fixed, the inspector general said, and a pilot program meant to test a solution was canceled, and fell woefully short anyway. As a result most taxpayers don’t learn that their identities have been stolen and their Social Security files may be screwed up.
“Taxpayers identified as victims of employment-related identity theft are not notified,” the inspector general said.
Government, Incompetence, Financial, Oops
More taxpayer accounts may have been affected by a cyberattack than previously disclosed, NBC News reports. The Internal Revenue Service said Friday that 700,000 households' tax data may have been compromised, which is approximately 390,000 more than initially reported. According to experts, the stolen accounts may cause an increase in false tax returns. The agency said it will send mailings to affected taxpayers beginning Feb. 29.
President Obama said, “If you’ve got the IRS operating in anything less than a neutral and non-partisan way, then that is outrageous… People have to be held accountable, and it’s got to be fixed.” -Floyd Brown
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Obama, Corruption
The IRS destroyed 422 tapes likely containing emails related to the 2013 targeting scandal eight months after the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee subpoenaed them according to Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) testimony Wednesday... J. Russell George, the treasury inspector general for tax administration, said in his testimony that the 422 tapes likely contained IRS Director of the Exempt Organizations Unit Lois Lerner’s emails and they “most likely will never be recovered.”
Crime, Government, Incompetence, Fraud, Brilliance, Oops, Theft
The IRS failed to do background checks on some private contractors who handled confidential taxpayer information, exposing more than a million taxpayers to an increased risk of fraud and identity theft, a government investigator said Thursday. In one case, the IRS gave a printing contractor a computer disk with names, addresses and Social Security numbers of 1.4 million taxpayers, but didn’t require a background check for anyone who worked on the job, said a report by the Treasury inspector general for tax administration. In another case, to transport sensitive documents the IRS used a courier who previously had spent 21 years in prison on arson and other charges.
Government, Incompetence, Oops, Lie
Due to a supposed computer crash, the agency only has Lerner emails to and from other IRS employees during this time frame. The IRS claims it cannot produce emails written only to or from Lerner and outside agencies or groups, such as the White House, Treasury, Department of Justice, FEC, or Democrat offices.
Democrat, Liberal, Election, Government, Obama, Corruption
Even as the IRS faces growing heat over Lois G. Lerner and the tea party targeting scandal, a government watchdog said Wednesday it’s pursuing cases against three other tax agency employees and offices suspected of illegal political activity in support of President Obama and fellow Democrats... In another case, a worker at the tax agency’s customer help line urged taxpayers “to re-elect President Obama in 2012 by repeatedly reciting a chant based on the spelling of his last name,” the Office of Special Counsel said in a statement.
The new head of the IRS has apologized to those who suffered because of the agency’s targeting of conservative groups, after he testified before a House subcommittee for the first time. IRS Commissioner John Koskinen told reporters after the hearing before the House Ways and Means Committee that the singling out of such organizations for special scrutiny would be “intolerable,” and vowed the IRS is not doing so now.
Government, Incompetence, Financial, Brilliance, Oops, Waste, Debt
The Internal Revenue Service issued $4 billion in fraudulent tax refunds last year to people using stolen identities, with some of the money going to addresses in Bulgaria, Lithuania and Ireland, according to a Treasury report released Thursday. The IRS sent a total of 655 tax refunds to a single address in Lithuania, and 343 refunds went to a lone address in Shanghai.
Government, Incompetence, Financial, Oops, Debt
The IRS’s Fiscal Year 2012 improper payment report to TIGTA indicates that EITC payments totaled nearly $62 billion. The IRS estimated that 21 to 25 percent of the EITC payments made in Fiscal Year 2012 were paid in error.
Tax, Government, Incompetence, Oops, Law
Senior Internal Revenue Service officials—including one at the heart of the IRS “targeting” scandal—violated agency policies and possibly federal records laws by using private email to send confidential taxpayer information, the GOP-led House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform said in a letter.
Government, Incompetence, Financial, Oops, Waste
The IRS is unable to account for $67 million spent from a slush fund established for Obamacare implementation, according to a Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) report released today. The “Health Insurance Reform Implementation Fund” (HIRIF) was tucked into Obamacare in order to give the IRS money to enforce the tax provisions of the healthcare law.
Interestingly, there were sharp partisan divides in how favorably voters viewed federal agencies. Democrats were more likely to see the IRS favorably, by a 42 point gap. -Justin Sink, The Hill
Liberal, Crime, Election, Government, Fascism, Justice
The Treasury Department has admitted for the first time that confidential tax records of several political candidates and campaign donors were improperly scrutinized by government officials, but the Justice Department has declined to prosecute any of the cases. Its investigators also are probing two allegations that the Internal Revenue Service "targeted for audit candidates for public office," the Treasury’s inspector general for tax administration, J. Russell George, has privately told Sen. Chuck Grassley.
Liberal, Union, Government, Incompetence, Financial, Fraud, Waste, Lie, Corruption, Debt
The Internal Revenue Service pays over 200 full-time employees not to conduct audits or process tax returns but to work for a federal employees’ union, according to documents released by the agency in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the advocacy group Americans for Limited Government. Forty-three of those employees are earning six-figure salaries, the documents show. Oddly, the employees working for the National Treasury Employees Union have titles that suggest they perform work in behalf of the American taxpayer, among them “Tax Examining Technician,” “Internal Revenue Agent,” and “Tax Specialist.”
Tax, Crime, Government, Incompetence, Financial, Oops, Immigration, Debt
The Internal Revenue Service sent 23,994 tax refunds worth a combined $46,378,040 to “unauthorized” alien workers who all used the same address in Atlanta, Ga., in 2011, according to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA).
Government, Guns, Incompetence, Oops
Special agents at the IRS accidentally shot their firearms 11 times between 2009 and 2011, and at least three of the cases “may have resulted in property damage or personal injury.” Agents actually fired their guns accidently more often than they intentionally fired them in the field, according to an audit by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA).
Another day, another slipup by the Internal Revenue Service. The incident involves the unwitting exposure of "tens of thousands" of Social Security numbers, according to a recent audit by the independent transparency and public-domain group Public.Resource.org. The identifying numbers were on the Internet for less than 24 hours after being discovered, but the damage was done.
Government, Waste, Video
The IRS says it has reformed since a pre-2012 election period when it admits to targeting conservative groups and paying tens of thousands of dollars to produce goofy and expensive videos, including one of employees line dancing to the “Cupid Shuffle,” to spice up a conference in California.
Government, Incompetence, Financial, Oops, Debt
The Internal Revenue Service issued more than $11 billion in improper payments through its Earned Income Tax Credit program last year, according to an inspector general’s report released this week. Treasury Department deputy inspector general Michael McKenney found that the IRS has failed to comply for two consecutive years with the Improper Payments Elimination Act, which President Obama signed in 2010. The law requires federal agencies to reduce erroneous payments to a rate of less than 10 percent.
Government, Incompetence
A recently released report shows widespread tax fraud in connection with the federal government’s Individual Taxpayer Identification Number program. The U.S. Treasury inspector general report accuses the IRS of discouraging employees from reviewing applications for the ID numbers, which are generally from non-resident workers. The inspector general specifically said there were 154 mailing addresses that were used 1,000 or more times on applications, including 15,795 numbers assigned to a Phoenix address.
Tax, Government, Incompetence, Financial, Oops
A single household in Lansing, Mich., pulled down at least $3.3 million in tax returns after the IRS failed to notice the address was listed on more than 2,000 separate filings. J. Russell George, the treasury inspector general for tax administration who released the report detailing the incident, says it is just one of many fraud cases among results he finds “extremely troubling.”
After claiming that the targeting of conservative groups came about because they lacked sufficient resources, the IRS is planning to dole out $70 million in employee bonuses, according to Senator Chuck Grassley, the ranking member on the Senate Finance Committee. “The IRS always claims to be short on resources,” Grassley said. “But it appears to have $70 million for union bonuses.
Tax, Government, Incompetence, Financial
The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration yesterday released The IRS Is Not in Compliance With All Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act Requirements (2012-40-028): The IRS estimates that 21 to 26 percent of EITC payments were issued improperly in Fiscal Year 2011. This equates to $13.7 billion to $16.7 billion in EITC improper payments.
Government, Incompetence, Financial
The number of prisoners who file false tax returns with the Internal Revenue Service has more than doubled in the last five years, according to a new Treasury Department report, and the amount of money the IRS has mistakenly refunded to those prisoners has nearly tripled.
Government, Incompetence, Financial, Fraud
The Internal Revenue Service hasn’t put in place effective procedures to prevent ineligible taxpayers from claiming tax credits for energy-efficient windows, doors and geothermal heat pumps, said a government audit released today. Auditors sampled 150 tax returns and found no record of homeownership associated with 30 percent of that group. The auditors also found instances in which prisoners or people too young to purchase a house were claiming the credits.
Tax, Crime, Government, Incompetence
TIGTA’s analysis found that the majority of tax returns the IRS identifies as being filed by prisoners are not being screened to assess their fraud potential. The review found that 253,929 (88 percent) of the 287,918 returns filed by prisoners as of March 24, 2010 were not selected for screening. Of those, 48,887 who claimed refunds totaling more than $130 million had no wage information reported to the IRS by employers.
Government, Incompetence
More than 48,800 of the nation's prisoners claimed $130 million in fraudulent tax refunds by March of this year, and the numbers are probably much higher, according to a new watchdog report.
At a tax symposium at Pepperdine Law School last week, former IRS chief counsel Donald Korb was asked, "On a scale of 1-10 ... how damaging is the current IRS scandal?" His answer: 9.5. Other tax experts on the panel called it "awful," and said that it has done "tremendous damage."