IRS
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The IRS will have a new tool to help it collect taxes from Americans with overseas bank accounts. Treasury officials say 77,000 foreign banks and other financial institutions have agreed to share account information. The overseas banks will start sending information in 2015. Denise Hintzke is the global tax leader of Deloitte's Foreign Account Tax Compliance Initiative. She joined Tom Temin on the Federal Drive to explain how this is going to work.
June 06, 2014 -
Should you even be doing your job? Is it possible that a private sector firm could do what your agency does at less cost to the taxpayers? It's been tried before, namely in the IRS, with very, very mixed results.
May 12, 2014 -
Last week the headlines screamed, "IRS TAX DEADBEATS GETTING CASH AWARDS." What a story! What's not to like? Except maybe there is another side to the story, Senior Correspondent Mike Causey says.
April 28, 2014 -
Absorbing $900 million in budget cuts has created some problems for the IRS, including major staffing reductions and uneven performance. The Government Accountability Office says the agency's budget request of $12.5 billion for fiscal year 2015 is a step in the right direction. Jay McTigue, director of strategic issues for the GAO, tells In Depth with Francis Rose $12.5 billion won't fix what ails the IRS.
April 25, 2014 -
Budget cuts have left the IRS high and dry. The Government Accountability Office says the agency has absorbed $900 million in cuts over the past four years. At the same time, the agency is failing to keep up with a growing source of tax revenue: large partnerships. Congress has raised concerns about the extent to which the IRS is able to audit these entities. Jim White, director of tax issues at the GAO, told Federal Drive hosts Tom Temin and Emily Kopp about the partnerships.
April 23, 2014 -
In a recent audit made public Tuesday, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration reported that between Oct. 1, 2010 and Dec. 31 2012, more than 2,800 employees disciplined within the past year for misconduct collected a total of $2.8 million in monetary awards. That included more than $1 million in cash awards for 1,100 IRS employees who had failed to pay federal taxes.
April 22, 2014 -
Budget cuts and a steep drop in the size of the Internal Revenue Service's workforce have resulted in "uneven" performance by the agency, according to the Government Accountability Office. In the wake of reduced staff and shrinking budgets, IRS service levels decreased, the agency was forced to delay two major IT projects and spending on employee training has been slashed by more than 80 percent, according to GAO.
April 22, 2014 -
A customer service representative at the IRS who repeatedly greeted taxpayers calling a help-line with a chant urging President Barack Obama's re-election in 2012 could now be facing significant disciplinary action, according to the Office of Special Counsel. It's one of three cases of improper political activity at the agency recently uncovered by OSC. Meanwhile, three career officials at Customs and Border Protection are under fire by OSC for allegedly manipulating the hiring process to install job candidates favored by political leadership into career appointments.
April 09, 2014 -
The IRS says six of its 19 information technology programs are running below cost and ahead of schedule. The agency says the others are experiencing cost overruns and schedule delays. But the IRS might not know if that's actually true. Dave Powner, director of Information Technology Management Issues at the Government Accountability Office, told In Depth with Francis Rose that GAO is looking at whether or not the IRS is accurately reporting its progress or lack thereof.
April 08, 2014 -
The former acting chief of the Internal Revenue Service, who led the agency in the aftermath of the political-targeting scandal and who stepped down in December, says he believes the agency is on the right track. In an interview on on the Federal Drive with Tom Temin and Emily Kopp, Danny Werfel, who recently joined the Boston Consulting Group, cited strong leadership at the agency.
March 31, 2014 -
The IRS is reorganizing its Tax Exempt and Government Entities Division.That's the office at the center of a controversy about whether it targeted conservative groups' applications. Under the new move, technical law specialists and support staff will shift to the IRS Office of Chief Counsel. Marcus Owens, the former head of the Exempt Organizations Division, now with the law firm Caplin and Drysdale, spoke to Federal Drive about how fundamental a change the move is.
March 27, 2014 -
Horace Blackman, a long-time Veterans Affairs IT executive, also leaves for the private sector, joining Lockheed Martin.
March 24, 2014 -
Under the squeeze of sequestration, the size of the Internal Revenue Service's workforce contracted by nearly 6,000 employees by the end of last year, according to new IRS data. At the end of fiscal 2013, the IRS workforce stood at 83,613 employees -- the fewest number in more than decade. That's also 5,938 fewer employees than the agency had on board at the end of fiscal 2012.
March 24, 2014 -
The strange case of Lois Lerner - a federal official pleading the fifth - and the IRS.
March 20, 2014 -
Given the choice, would you choose a date with Justin Bieber, an evening with Beyonce or a $25,000 buyout? Given the odds, chances are you will never have to make a choice, Senior Correspondent Mike Causey says. But be prepared...
February 28, 2014