Making The Same Mistake Hundreds Of Times: The IRS Re-Hires Fired Employees

This week, Internal Revenue Service Commissioner John Koskinen is set to appear before the Senate Finance Committee, and yet again, the IRS is in a sorry state. As more reports of the IRS unfairly targeting Americans come to light, taxpayers are dumbfounded about what they see as a lack of accountability at the agency and its inability to clean out bad employees. But the problem is worse than that. In hundreds of cases over a three year period, the IRS has actually hired back employees it had previously fired.

The fear of getting fired from a job – along with all of the personal and professional upheaval that can bring – lies in the hearts of many hard-working, tax-paying Americans. However, a recent investigation by a government watchdog dug up undeniable evidence that the very worst employees at the IRS don’t need to fear for their jobs.

An investigation into the hiring process at the IRS found that the agency has a history of rehiring employees who had previously been fired for misconduct. Examples of misconduct highlighted by the investigation include serious offenses like fraud, falsification of documents, and unauthorized access to taxpayer information. This is not only an affront to taxpayers, it is also a slap in the face to the public servants at the agency who do work hard every day.

Investigators looked at a sample of 7,168 rehired employees and found that 824, or 11 percent, of them had prior substantiated employment issues.