Bonuses paid to 1,100 IRS employees who owed back taxes

WASHINGTON » Failure to pay taxes usually is bad news for most Americans, but apparently not for some Internal Revenue Service employees who received performance bonuses despite failing to submit what they owed.

The IRS paid a total of $1.1 million in bonuses over approximately a two-year period to more than 1,100 employees who had been disciplined for "substantiated federal tax compliance problems," according to an inspector general’s report. Those employees also received awards of more than 10,000 hours of extra time off and 69 faster-than-normal pay grade increases. They were among more than 2,800 IRS employees during that period who got performance awards within one year of disciplinary action, such as suspensions or written reprimands.

The performance awards did not violate the law, said J. Russell George, Treasury inspector general for tax administration.