Federal Manager's Daily Report

The IRS would be barred from granting performance or other types of awards to employees who are seriously delinquent on their taxes or who have committed misconduct, under a newly offered bipartisan Senate proposal.

The bill reflects one introduced in the last Congress but that failed to advance. The House earlier attached similar language to an appropriations bill that since has stalled but may be revived in light of a broader budget agreement recently reached.

The moves are motivated by the IRS scandals of recent years, in which some employees implicated had received performance awards at the time, and also by reports on tax delinquency rates among federal employees and in particular among IRS employees.

The Senate measure specifies which types of misconduct and what level of tax delinquency would trigger the ban. Passage of such language affecting the IRS likely would set precedent for expansion to other agencies.

The House earlier this year passed a bill to require firing of seriously tax-delinquent employees, although not by enough to send the measure on to the Senate under the special rules used to hold that vote.