Paul L. Caron
Dean





Saturday, August 22, 2015

The IRS Scandal, Day 835

IRS Logo 2Statement of NTEU National President Tony Reardon:

IRS employees are dedicated and committed public servants who perform vital work for our country. No bipartisan report, including the bipartisan Senate Finance Committee report and reports by the Treasury Inspector General, has ever found any evidence of political motivation on the part of IRS employees.

Treasury Inspector General J. Russell George, the author of the TIGTA report, testified repeatedly under oath that the TIGTA report found no evidence of partisan motive or intentional wrongdoing on the part of IRS employees in the tax-exempt division. The report also noted that IRS officials stated that the criteria used to evaluate tax-exempt applications were not influenced by any individual or organization outside the IRS.

The frontline employees at IRS are represented by NTEU as part of the IRS bargaining unit. NTEU does not represent management officials, such as Lois Lerner.

NTEU members participated throughout the investigation, testified voluntarily in congressional hearings and were thanked by the chair and Republican members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee for their assistance and patriotism.

Oversight Committee Chairman Darryl Issa publicly told two frontline IRS employees at a hearing: "I just want to take a moment to say that I appreciate that both of you are not political folks, and that it is appropriate that, no surprise, you did everything as far as we know, very professionally." And Congressman Turner at the same hearing stated: "I want to thank both of you, because you're coming forward and being honest."

Without collective bargaining rights, frontline employees would have little protection against retaliation by senior management when reporting wrongdoing. This is not the first time eliminating collective bargaining rights has been proposed by Sen. Hatch. He has previously called for eliminating collective bargaining rights at IRS and other agencies long before this report was issued.

https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2015/08/the-irs-scandal-day-835.html

IRS News, IRS Scandal, Tax | Permalink

Comments

They can do what the vast majority of us do when we don't like upper management: Leave.

Posted by: Oliver Shank | Aug 22, 2015 4:49:57 PM