Federal employees who refuse to pay their federal taxes should face consequences for their actions, the new chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform committee said.
Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, said that more than 100,000 federal employees do not pay their federal faxes every year, and one of his priorities in the new Congress will be to stiffen the penalties they face.
"We have roughly 100,000 federal workers on an annual basis that don't pay their federal taxes and that's just not acceptable," Chaffetz said.
For the last few years Chaffetz has pushed legislation that would allow agencies to fire or prohibit them from hiring people who owed federal taxes. Chaffetz said while the IRS has the ability to fire employees who owe federal taxes other agencies do not.
He wants to expand that power to all agencies.
"We have roughly $1 billion a year that is not collected from federal employees because they just chose not to pay their federal taxes. I think that's fundamentally wrong," Chaffetz said.
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