IRS cracks down on tax delinquents among its workforce

• IRS employees are supposed to stay on top of their taxes. But that’s not always the case. About 95% of IRS employees pay what they owe in taxes. That’s a requirement to work there. But a watchdog report found the IRS disciplined more than a thousand employees with confirmed tax noncompliance issues between October 2021 and April 2023. The IRS found 70 employees were willfully noncompliant on their taxes, and fired 20 of them over it. The report found the IRS also re-hired nearly 400 employees and 100 contractor employees with tax noncompliance between 2005 and 2022.
  (95% of IRS and contractor employees were tax compliant - Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration)
• In an effort to address persistent pilot shortfalls, the Air Force is working to eliminate bottlenecks in the pilot training pipeline. The service increased the availability of T-6 aircraft, a key component in training pilots. It’s also working to address issues with the troubled T-38 aircraft while waiting for the T-7s to arrive. Service leaders hope the arrival of T-7s will fundamentally shift the pilot training model. The Air Force has struggled with the pilot shortage for nearly a decade — falling about 200 pilots short each year.
  (Air Force continues to fall short of its pilot training goals - The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies)
• The Space Force is offering generous bonuses for Guardians to reenlist. The service has released its 2024 selective retention bonus list, offering up to $180,000 for Guardians in critical career fields to reenlist. The reenlistment bonus is an increase of $80,000 over previous years. The career cap for bonuses is set at $360,000. The Selective Retention Bonus program consists of seven Space Force specialty codes. The career fields include cyber network operations and cyber systems operations, among others.
  (Space Force offers up to $180,000 in reenlistment bonuses - Space Force)
• Rep. Abigail Spangberger (D-Va.) is trying to force a vote on her bill to repeal the Windfall Elimination Provision and the Government Pension Offset. Spanberger filed a special rule that would allow for consideration of her bill to repeal the WEP/GPO offsets if a discharge petition is filed and receives the support of a majority of House lawmakers. A discharge petition is a procedural tool that, when signed by 218 House members, forces a bill out of committee and onto the floor for a vote. Spangberger's WEP/GPO repeal bill has 322 co-sponsors. Bill Shackelford, the national president of NARFE, said he anticipates the discharge petition may be filed upon Congress’ return in September.
  (NARFE calls for floor vote to advance Social Security Fairness Act to repeal the WEP and GPO - NARFE)

        Learn about the government’s efforts to move away from storing hard copy records in our latest ebook, sponsored by Canon.

• The Federal Secure Cloud Advisory Committee is kicking off new research and wants your feedback. Industry and agencies, here's your chance to influence the development of solutions to challenges around accelerating cloud adoption in government. The Federal Secure Cloud Advisory Committee is seeking feedback on its top two priorities. The first is to identify and propose solutions to lower the barriers to entry to FedRAMP for cloud service providers, specifically small businesses. The second focus is on expediting the FedRAMP authorization process for cloud service offerings, including the use of agile authorizations and other potential ways to reduce costs. The General Services Administration established this federal advisory committee as part of its implementation of the FedRAMP Authorization Act, passed in 2022.
  (FSCAC seeks feedback on priorities - GSA)
• Two senators want to boost cyber workforce training across government. Sens. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) and Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) recently introduced the Federal Cyber Workforce Training Act. It would require the White House to come up with a plan for a federal cyber workforce institute. The program would train early-career feds in cyber work roles. The Biden administration has also endorsed the idea of a federal training institute as part of its national cybersecurity workforce strategy.
  (Rounds, Ossoff introduce legislation to advance federal cyber workforce development - Sen. Mike Rounds' office)
• A top Senate Democrat is pushing a new bill to reform the government’s classification system. Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Gary Peters (D-Mich.) said the overclassification of information is a growing crisis. His Classification Reform for Transparency Act would create a presidential task force to narrow the criteria for classifying information in the first place. The bill would also allow the public to make declassification requests. Experts say the current classification system costs taxpayers more than $18 billion a year.
  (Peters introduces bill to improve the federal government’s document classification and declassification system - HSGAC)
• The Postal Service is getting a new vehicle fleet over the coming years. But an agency watchdog is looking at how it’ll dispose of obsolete mail trucks. USPS has more than 130,000 of its iconic Long-Life Vehicles. Some have been in service for more than 30 years, and are expensive to maintain. The USPS inspector general’s office expects to have a full report on disposal efforts by December. The agency is purchasing more than 100,000 new vehicles by the end of 2028.
  (Fleet modernization - disposal of Long-Life Vehicles - USPS Office of Inspector General)

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