Apparently line dancing lessons and videos showing IRS employees acting in a Star Trek video, at some of the over 220 personnel training conferences attended in the last three years at a cost of over $50M, aren’t the only thing the IRS wastes money on.
The Treasury’s inspector general has now reported that the IRS has wasted additional taxpayer’s dollars using credit cards to make questionable purchases on items ranging from wine to online pornography.
Excerpt:
Poor oversight by the Internal Revenue Service allowed workers to use agency credit cards to buy wine for an expensive luncheon, dorky swag for managers’ meetings and, for one employee, romance novels and diet pills, an agency watchdog said Tuesday.
Two IRS credit cards were used to buy online pornography, though the employees said the cards were stolen. One of the workers reported five agency credit cards lost or stolen.
IRS employees used agency credit cards to make more than 273,000 purchases totaling nearly $108 million in 2010 and 2011, according to the report by the Treasury inspector general for tax administration.
The vast majority of those purchases were legitimate, the report said. However, the report said the IRS has inadequate controls to prevent inappropriate purchases.
The report said the cards were used to pay for meals from $100 to $140 per person which was four to five times the amount allowed by federal rules and 28 bottles of wine at a 2010 luncheon for tax officials from foreign countries.
Excerpt:
In another case, cards were used to make questionable purchases of decorative and give-away items including plush animals, bandanas, kazoos and a rented popcorn machine.
Another cardholder allegedly made $2,655 worth of personal purchases — the report said credit card information indicates it was spent on diet pills, romance novels and other items, and that the purchaser may have provided false receipts to justify it.
The IRS will be the primary agency implementing our health care through the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), the agency that will have our tax returns, our medical records and the demonstrated “integrity” not give or use this information for any other purpose than for which it is intended.
You can’t make this stuff up!