Clean up IRS rehiring practices

As Congress tackles tax reform, the IRS needs reform, too — specifically, its hiring practices, which too often result in bringing back former employees it let go under clouds of suspicion, in apparent violation of existing laws.

That’s what two Republican senators, North Carolina’s Richard Burr and Wyoming’s Michael B. Enzi, contend in a Sept. 15 letter that urges stiffening such laws.

The Washington Times reports they’re asking Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., and Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., “the top lawmakers on the Appropriations Committee panel that oversees the IRS . to write even tougher restrictions into the 2018 spending bill.”

Mr. Burr also has a bill of his own “that would bar the IRS from rehiring anyone who separated from the agency due to conduct or performance issues.”

The problem is documented by a series of reports from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.

An audit released in July found “some 10 percent of employees the IRS hired between January 2015 and March 2016 had left under the cloud of investigation, yet were brought back,” The Times says, adding that IRS rehires have included “fraudsters, tax cheats and disruptive employees.”

Neither such problematic individuals nor IRS officials who rehire them belong on the government’s payroll. Whether via the 2018 spending bill, Burr’s bill or both, Congress must force the IRS to clean up its rehiring act. Taxpayers deserve an honest, trustworthy IRS workforce.