Federal Employee Tax Accountability Act of 2013
Floor Speech
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Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to commend Mr. Chaffetz. Like the last piece of legislation, Mr. Chaffetz reintroduces a bill that passed overwhelmingly in the last Congress but was not taken up by the Senate. As Mr. Chaffetz said, it is in fact time for the Senate to at least give us an up-or-down vote on this legislation. By bringing it early in the Congress and, I believe, all these bills on a bipartisan basis, we make it clear that we want to hold ourselves to the standard that the taxpayers believe we should.
All Federal employees are currently held for paying their taxes by the code of ethics of the executive branch. So how can someone who, by the code of ethics, in fact not have satisfied in good faith their obligations as citizens, including all financial obligations, especially those to the Federal, State, and local taxes that are imposed by law, how can somebody who in fact hasn't done it and has reached a point of garnishment, reached a point at which they are unwilling to pay their just taxes, have no appeals or any pending, how can they in fact continue to expect to be Federal employees? The truth is these employees have given up any question about their ethics by avoiding it.
Before going further, I would like to have the Speaker take note that in fact for us, as Federal employees, our withholding is already taken out of our taxes. So to become seriously in arrears in our taxes, for the most part, has to do with activities outside our role. We're well insured for health care. Our taxes have already been withheld. So although there are occasions in which a taxpayer may find themselves seriously in arrears for some reason otherwise, this bill intends and has carefully crafted every possible exception so they could continue to work if, in fact, reasonable measures have been taken by the employee. In fact, if an employee simply agrees to be garnished for past taxes, pursuant to the law, they in fact can continue to work.
So I'd like to preface by saying this bill has passed before and has been well thought out. We in fact sent a letter to IRS asking them for a timely response. And to my dismay, they were not interested enough to respond to us by the deadline. Of course, the deadline for responding really was in the last Congress.
I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I'm not going to do too much responding to something that asks why something was brought on April 15, except to say that the minority was very happy to have us bring on April 15 something to hold contractors responsible on tax day for taxes, and we thought appropriate that both should be about this tax day in which 99 percent of Americans have paid all their taxes, whether they like to or not, and a small percentage have not.
With that, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Chaffetz).
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Mr. ISSA. I yield myself 1 minute.
The gentleman from California is new, and I'm sure he did not mean to disparage our intention.
Our intention was, in fact, to bring accountability and, in fact, a sense of pride to the Federal workforce, one in which 96-point-some percent do pay their taxes, and of the remaining ones who do not, the vast majority has made arrangements to deal with taxes in arrears.
But, Mr. Speaker, less than a year ago, I had my house robbed. I live in a low-crime neighborhood. Less than 2 percent of the homes get robbed in a given year, but the police still responded and still said, I'll do something about your home being burglarized.
All we're saying here is: let's stop talking about the 97 percent who do the right thing, and let's deal with those who do not in a way that encourages them, like the IRS has, to start doing the right thing and lower that failure rate to 1 percent or less.
I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. ISSA. I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, the gen tle lady is entitled to her opinion, but I don't believe her facts.
Our information shows that, in fact, first of all, this bill only pertains to civilian personnel. It does not affect uniformed military personnel. Uniformed military personnel can be court-martialed for not living up to their financial obligations. That is certainly more than we are considering here.
The fact is the numbers we presented, the numbers quoted here, represent civilian workers. Some of those civilian workers do also serve in the Reserves, and some of them are also retired individuals, but let's understand this is not about the men and women deployed in uniform. This is, in fact, about civilian workers who may have supplemental incomes from retirement, who may, in fact, also be Reserves. This is all about people who receive often more than $100,000 a year and have not made arrangements to catch up on taxes that are seriously in arrears by up to $10,000 or more.
I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. ISSA. I yield myself the remaining time.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to close on a little bit quieter note than the debate. The debate was, rightfully so, heated, and it was heated because, in fact, we are making an important symbolic statement in this legislation.
$1 billion is a lot of money to the taxpayers listening, but the principle here is extremely important. It's a principle that shows that, when the IRS changed their rules, they didn't fire very many people. I'm sure, in fact, what they got was compliance, far greater compliance, but let's go through a few things because the gen tle lady, my colleague and friend from California (Ms. Speier), used a larger number, and the larger numbers, in fact, are worth using in closing.
We've been talking, up until now, about $3 billion, $2.976 billion, that in fact is about the civilian employees of the Federal Government. They have a delinquency rate of approximately 3.62 percent. She mentioned other individuals, and I want to mention in closing their delinquency rate:
Civilian retired: understand, these are not individuals you can fire. They're retired, but their delinquency is 2.5 percent.
Military active duty: these are the men and women who have a different set of rules. They can be court-martialed if they don't live up to their obligations, 2 percent. Remember, that 2 percent includes all those who may eventually comply.
Military Reserve and Guard: these are the men and women who give up their day jobs, often taking a huge pay cut in doing so, often unanticipated, 2.4 percent.
Military retired, 4.3 percent. Mr. Speaker, I can't account for why, when military people retire, they find themselves seriously in arrears in taxes. But what I can say is when we look at 1 percent at the IRS, and 2 percent for those men and women getting a private's pay or a corporal's pay, they manage to keep their taxes straight.
The Federal workforce has a high compliance rate, as has been said repeatedly by my colleagues. Their compliance rate is nearly twice the rate of the public as a whole. Of course, the public as a whole includes over 7 percent unemployed, and it includes all kinds of other characteristics that lead to people being in default.
What we're saying here today is the IRS made a decision to have a compliance standard that has dramatically reduced failure to comply, and has put us in a situation where people of the IRS can say proudly: We pay our taxes. We pay our taxes at a 99 percent rate, and we deal with those who do not live up to promising to pay the rest.
We just want the same for the Federal workforce, and I believe Federal workers listening here today would agree that in fact since most of them do exactly what's right, all of them should be held to do what is exactly right. I urge passage of the bill.
I yield back the balance of my time.
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