Thousands Of IRS Employees Are Working Outside Jobs That Risk Conflicts Of Interest

The IRS does not sufficiently track whether its employees are taking on outside jobs such as tax preparation that could be in conflict with their government duties, according to an inspector general report.

By examining tax income data from 2016, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration identified 167 employees who were potentially engaged in a prohibited employment activity and did not have an approved request to do so, and 2,196 employees with outside employment activity who hold IRS positions that have a high risk of an actual or perceived conflict of interest as a result of the outside employment but did not have an approved outside employment request.

These jobs are potential conflicts of interest because IRS employees “have knowledge of the IRS’s internal processes and dollar value thresholds that can be used to benefit another employer,” the report stated.