IRS has contracted with 20 late paying taxes: audit

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The Internal Revenue Service has awarded contracts to at least 20 private-sector companies that, collectively, owed $5.2 million in back taxes, according to federal auditors.

The Treasury Department’s inspector general examined 135 firms that received IRS contracts of at least $250,000 and found 20 were federal-tax delinquents.

The audit, which examined a sample of contracts between October 2006 and December 2008, found that six of the 20 companies alone had a total of nearly $950,000 in unpaid taxes when they were awarded the contracts. In 2009, their tax bills had ballooned to $4.9 million.

The IRS responded that 18 of the 20 have now “resolved” their tax obligations. But the inspector general said the IRS still isn’t checking to see if companies whose contracts are renewed have run up tax bills or to check if those with continuing contracts have become scofflaws. The IRS says it has no legal authority to do either.

Scripps Howard News Service