Employees at the IRS and Customs and Border Protection should get at least some shutdown-related back pay at soon as tomorrow, senior leaders at the two agencies said today. “You will receive your back and regular pay a full four days earlier than Oct. 28, the day most people would receive pay,” Acting IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said in an email to employees. In a similar note, Assistant CBP Commissioner Eugene Schied said that employees there should see retroactive salary payments show up “as early as Thursday.” The two agencies, whose combined workforces total almost 150,000, are both paid through…
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The highly publicized government watchdog report back in May that found the IRS tax exempt division singled out conservative groups for scrutiny often cited internal emails to help back up those findings. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) cited email source material, for instance, in referring to a June 29, 2011 internal briefing paper, which the report said showed how a team of specialists would review any nonprofit applicants with words such as Tea Party or Patriots in a case file. Democrats have since pointed out that progressive groups faced scrutiny from the IRS, too, accusing TIGTA of…
The IRS has called off a furlough day planned for Aug. 30, and will make a final decision next month on whether any more unpaid time off is needed by the end of the fiscal year, acting Commissioner Danny Werfel told employees this week. “We have made substantial progress in cutting costs. . . Our progress is such that we have decided to postpone the furlough day scheduled for Aug. 30. We still have more work to do on the budget and cost-savings, so we will re-evaluate in early September and make a final determination as to whether we will need another…
Today brought some good news for IRS employees: An unpaid furlough day scheduled for this coming Monday has been cancelled. “The IRS will be open for taxpayers that day as scheduled, and all employees will be paid for that day,” acting agency chief Danny Werfel said in a blast email to workers. “This step follows a lot of hard work across the service to cut costs.” The now-cancelled furlough day was supposed to be the fourth taken by IRS employees because of sequester-related budget cuts. A fifth and final furlough day is still scheduled for Aug. 30; management will keep…
Rep. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill, lost her legs and the use of her right arm as a helicopter pilot in Iraq in 2004. She was awarded a Purple Heart for her combat injuries. Braulio Castillo broke his foot in a prep school injury nearly three decades ago at the U.S. Military Preparatory School, which he attended for nine months before playing football in college. He owns a technology business certified as a service-disabled, veteran-owned company eligible for government set aside contracts. The two met at a House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing Wednesday in an exchange neither will forget…
An IRS technology official at the center of a House investigation into whether he pushed the agency to award contracts potentially worth up to $500 million to a company owned by a personal friend pleaded the Fifth Amendment and refused to testify at a House hearing Wednesday. A House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform report Tuesday said Greg Roseman, an IRS deputy director, may have influenced the IRS to award lucrative IT contracts to Strong Castle, Inc. The same report also said the company had given the Small Business Administration misleading information to win approval so it could obtain…
A high school injury nearly three decades ago enabled the owner of a contracting company to claim service disabled veteran status last year, opening the door to contracts worth up to a half billion dollars, a House investigation has found. Braulio Castillo, owner Signet Computers, which has been renamed Strong Castle, injured his ankle in the fall of 1984 during his year at the U.S. Military Academy Preparatory School, but would later go on to play quarterback and linebacker the next year at the University of San Diego, according to a 157-page report Tuesday by the House Committee on Oversight…
Todd Grams, the Veterans Affairs Department’s chief financial officer, is leaving to become chief of staff at the IRS. In an email sent today to “Friends and Colleagues,” Grams, who is also the VA’s executive-in-charge for management, said he is returning to the IRS this week at the request of acting Commissioner Danny Werfel. “For a total of almost 11 years (over two tours), I have had the honor to serve our nation’s veterans,” Grams said. “I am very grateful to have had both opportunities to contribute at the VA.” Grams was previously at the IRS from 2001 to 2006, first…
Danny Werfel is just starting his new gig as acting IRS chief, but leaders of a Senate oversight committee are already wishing he were back in his old post as controller of the Office of Management and Budget. Werfel “has demonstrated integrity in everything he’s done in the federal government,” Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, the top Republican on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said at a hearing today. “My hope is that he’s there for a short period of time and back where we can use him in a better way.” “He really has a base of…
Tom Burger has spent his life dedicated to public service. Burger said it started with President John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address in 1961, when Kennedy said, “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.” “That stimulated me to look into public service,” Burger said. As a young man, Burger served as a Marine in the Vietnam War during the Tet Offensive of 1968. After he left the Marines, Burger was still looking to serve. He turned to the federal government. Burger looked into working at the Federal Bureau of Investigation or the Internal Revenue…