Congressional Report: IRS Employees Traveled in High Style on Taxpayers’ Dime
Jeff Edwards December 22, 2016
The recently released Hatch report found “troubling” expenses associated with the ultra-luxurious travel arrangements made for some IRS employees on long-term assignments.
Black car service, all-expense paid stays at the Ritz Carlton and first-class commutes on the high-speed Acela train–if this sounds like the sort of travel you could get used to, then a career at the Internal Revenue Service might be worth exploring. You had better hurry though because lawmakers are poised to drastically tighten the purse strings if a new congressional report on the agency’s seemingly exorbitant travel expenses is any indication.
The just-released report, “A View of IRS Employee Travel” called spending on long-term travel at the agency both “troubling” and “frustrating.” The official report by the staff of United States Committee on Finance Chairman Orin Hatch concluded that the IRS was not following Federal Travel Regulations (FTC) which require that government employees “must exercise the same care in incurring expenses that a prudent person would exercise if traveling on personal business.”
The report found that some IRS employees instead chose to lease multi-million dollar townhouses for extended stays and in some cases, received reimbursement for dry cleaning expenses that exceeded $500. One employee stayed at the Grand Hyatt while working at the IRS headquarters in Washington, DC for 168 days in 2015, racking up a bill for nearly $40,000. That number does not including the more than $1,500 in cab fares he accrued commuting to his nearby office.
All told, the cost to taxpayers for luxury travel needs of just 15 employees totaled more than $1.4 million in 2015. According to the report, most of the employees involved in the study worked full-time at the IRS facility in Washington, D.C. for more than half the year, only returning home on weekends.
“The number of employees who travel more than half of the year and the cost at which they do so is simply unacceptable,” the Senate report concluded. “Luxury apartments, black car service, and unnecessary Amtrak Acela rides cannot continue.”
Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), whose staff researched and wrote the report, called for immediate reforms. “I write to urge the IRS to better utilize its own internal policies and procedures, without exception or administrative maneuvering,” the Senator wrote in a letter to IRS chief John Koskinen. “The Committee found that while the IRS has a number of employees who travel more than half of the fiscal year incurring $1.4 million in travel costs, the IRS has routinely failed to take allowable steps to reduce its travel expenditures. The lack of effort by IRS employees to exercise prudence and economy when utilizing taxpayer funds is concerning, and more importantly, a direct apparent violation of the FTR.”
[Photo: Getty Images]
You’re Reading
Agree with Brucemcdou - slow news cycle and congress definitely prefers to keep the focus off of their ineptitude. Where is the GAO report on the travel practices of congressional representatives and staff? If you wanted a real head turner - that would be the story to run. Nothing to see here, pure obfuscation.
Begs the question of how many of these IRS employees are Flyertalkers and are now getting to read about themselves here. lol.
SpartyAir - the article did not state whether the employee was staying long term at the Grand Hyatt. They may just as easily have been staying on a series of stays of 3 to 4 nights. Also, the article doesn't actually list the rate paid, just that the total charges were "over $40,000" for a total of 168 days, not 168 consecutive nights. The charges likely also include other perfectly normal per diem charges on business travel like breakfast or dinner, etc. meaning the actual room rates may have been those which you cite. The point remains that for a normal (private sector) business traveler like myself or most of the posters on FlyerTalk such charges would not be unusual or out of line. But the fact that the people involved are Government employees somehow means that they get criticized for perfectly legitimate travel expenses. Again, I am proud and happy that there are people willing to provide needed Government services despite the critics.
Just tax these employees personally for the value of luxury travel in excess of the rules. That or have them reimburse directly. We'll see how important lavish is when they have to reach into their own pocket.
Brucemcdo-- Well... considering that DC's highest government per diem rate for stays over 30 days for 2015 was $172 and the highest rate for stays over 180 days was $126, I would say the IRS employees were in violation of the FTR. They should not have been staying in the Grand Hyatt.