IRS Proposes Revising ‘Deadly Sins’ Policy

The Bush administration has again proposed that Congress change the so-called “ten deadly sins” policy in effect at the IRS-a listing of infractions for which firing is mandatory even though the agency might otherwise choose a less stringent penalty. The provision, part of the 1998 IRS reform law, mandates firing employees for offenses including willful understatement of tax liability, willful failure to file returns on time, making false statements under oath, falsifying or destroying documents in order to conceal mistakes and using tax laws to harass or retaliate against taxpayers or for personal reasons. The provision has been seen as a potential precedent for similar lists of mandatory firing offenses in other agencies, although no others have been legislated to date, in part because of the controversy surrounding the IRS rules.