The administration also is seeking once again to revise
the “10 deadly sins” policy at the IRS, a program that has
served as a model for creating offenses for which firing
is mandatory and the discipline is no longer in the hands
of management.
The IRS policy, which was created in the wake of the taxpayer
abuse scandals of the late 1990s, lays out 10 firing
offenses–hence the nickname–including certain offenses
involving their personal taxes or their handling of other
people’s tax returns. The administration wants to modify
the infractions subject to mandatory termination and allow
a broader range of potential penalties, thus “reducing
employee anxiety resulting from unduly harsh discipline or
unfounded allegations.”
The deadly sins policy has been an ongoing concern of the
National Treasury Employees Union, the major union at the
IRS. NTEU says the provisions are too broad and vague, that
they create fear and confusion in the workplace and leave
employees’ careers vulnerable to frivolous charges from
the public.
While the budget did not describe its intended changes in
detain, the House in 2003 passed language to allow the IRS
to take a personnel action other than a disciplinary action
for violations of the rules and to make it no longer a
“deadly sin” to fail to file a tax return for which a
refund is due. The parent bill died in the Senate, however.
The “deadly sins” provision was the model for the “mandatory
removal offenses” authority in new departments of Defense
and Homeland Security personnel policies, although neither
agency to date has defined those offenses. The trend could
spread to other agencies as well through the administration’s
initiative to extend a DHS/DoD-like system throughout
government.