The IRS sent Ernst a letter in November saying it still had 2,044 employees who owed more than $12 million in back taxes.
Senator Joni Ernst (R., Iowa) is celebrating tax day by introducing three pieces of legislation to crack down on the IRS by holding bureaucrats accountable for failing to pay taxes.
Ernst is putting forward legislation to audit IRS employees and terminate every agent with tax issues, to require the IRS to publish its annual report on tax delinquency within the federal bureaucracy, and to ban the IRS from using taxpayer funds to buy guns and ammo, National Review has learned.
“The spirit of 1776 is alive and well at the most unlikely of places – the IRS,” Ernst said in a statement to NR.
“The agency is stockpiling weapons and staging a tax revolt. This Tax Day, I am holding these tax collectors accountable by forcing them to live by the rules they are supposed to enforce and auditing the auditors!”
An explosive audit from the Treasury Department’s internal watchdog conducted at Ernst’s request found that thousands of IRS employees owed an estimated $50 million of back taxes. The agency only terminated 20 employees with tax issues despite having authority to fire any employee who willfully fails to pay taxes.
The IRS sent Ernst a letter in November saying it still had 2,044 employees who owed more than $12 million in back taxes, 860 of whom still had not paid overdue taxes, the Washington Examiner reported. Ernst’s Audit the IRS Act would mandate annual IRS employee audits and firings for those who are not paying their taxes.
The problem of tax-dodging bureaucrats is not limited to the IRS. A separate 2023 audit from the Treasury Department’s Inspector General for Tax Administration revealed that 149,000 federal civilian employees owed $1.5 billion in unpaid taxes in fiscal year 2021, a 32 percent increase from fiscal year 2015.
Ernst’s Tax Delinquencies and Overdue Debts are Government Employees’ Responsibility (Tax DODGER) Act instructs the IRS to publish an annual report on current or former federal employees who have overdue taxes or have not filed a tax return.
Federal employees are subject to the same taxpayer rules as regular Americans, except standards are higher because their salaries are paid by taxpayer dollars. From fiscal year 2016 through fiscal year 2020, the federal government had 42,000 civilian employees who failed to pay their taxes for two or more years. The Postal Service had the most repeat non-filers at more than 9,000 employees.
Furthermore, Ernst is introducing the Why Does the IRS Need Guns Act to prevent the IRS from using federal funds to buy, store, or transfer guns or ammo. The bill would also have the IRS auction off its current supply of guns and ammo, and put the proceeds towards paying down the federal debt. With its current weaponry, the IRS is one of the 50 largest police forces in the U.S., spending $10 million on weaponry and gear since 2020, according to government watchdog Open the Books.
Before introducing her bills, Ernst sent recommendations last month to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent for reforming the IRS to lower costs and improve efficiency. Ernst advised Bessent to upgrade the agency’s tech capabilities, to pursue accountability for tax cheats inside the IRS, and to end the agency’s political weaponization.
Ernst’s prescriptions for reworking the IRS are consistent with her broader support for the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, outwardly headed by billionaire Elon Musk.
As chair of the Senate DOGE Caucus and Senate Small Business Committee, she has made similar recommendations for improving the cost efficiency and management of the Small Business Administration under administrator Kelly Loeffler, as NR previously reported.
Ernst has also prioritized accountability for Covid-19 fraud and exposing “boondoggle” government projects experiencing significant delays and cost overruns.