The bipartisan leaders of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee have asked the IRS for an update on the government’s ability to verify any federal tax debt during security clearance background investigations.
A letter noted that clearance adjudication guidelines state that the individual’s finances, including debts, are a potential indicator of financial troubles that could lead to denying or revoking clearances, which are required to hold many federal positions.
They cited a 2014 GAO report showing that 83,000 federal and contractor employees at DoD alone had a total of $730 million in tax debt as of June 2012; about a quarter of them were eligible for a top secret or sensitive compartmented information clearance.
They asked for a status update on an interagency working group headed by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to explore whether an automated process to review federal tax compliance for clearance applicants could be established.
They noted that the stated goal was to have any such system in place by 2017, along with needed revisions to the tax code and to investigative standards for background investigations.