On the recordApril 15, 2013
I thank Chairman Issa, Speaker Boehner, and Leader Cantor for their support in allowing us to bring this piece of legislation, a piece of legislation that has come before this body before. This is not a new topic. This is not something that just sprung up with us in the last 10 days here. Mr. Speaker, on tax day, 2013, I want to impress upon my colleagues that Federal employees who consciously ignore the channels and processes in place to fulfill their tax obligations must be held accountable. The Federal Employee Tax Accountability Act addresses noncompliance with our tax laws by prohibiting individuals with serious delinquent tax debt from Federal civilian employment. Most taxpayers file accurate tax returns and pay them on time. Most Federal workers do that--the overwhelming majority of them do it. In fact, statistically, more than 96 percent of our Federal employees do the right thing and they do it on time. But, unfortunately, there are a few bad apples out there. There are a few people out there that, despite all the processes, all the appeals, all the things out there, Mr. Speaker, they still choose to thumb their nose at the rest of us. Unfortunately, there are 107,000 Federal workers who don't pay their taxes. It accounts for about $1 billion in uncollected taxes. In 2011--the most recent year for which the IRS data is available-- they tell us that 107,658 civilian Federal employees owed more than $1 billion.…
