The IRS rehired hundreds of employees who had had earlier performance problems at the agency, including 141 former workers "who had botched their own tax returns,"
The Washington Times reported.
The 141 included five IRS employees who were rehired even though the IRS knew they had intentionally failed to file their taxes during the past two years
In all, between January 2010 and September 2013, the agency rehired 824 employees with "prior substantiated performance issues," an agency watchdog said.
The findings were included in a reported released Thursday by the
Treasury Department Inspector General for Tax Administration.
In one case, an employee who had taken two months of unauthorized vacation was rehired, even though a previous manager expressly warned the agency not to rehire the individual.
Other problematic rehires included workers who had peeked at private tax information they were not authorized to see.
The inspector general, J. Russell George, said that of the employees who had prior problems, nearly one in five had more problems after they were rehired.
"Rehiring prior employees with known conduct and performance issues presents increased risk to the IRS and taxpayers," George said.
Responding to the inspector general's findings, IRS officials said they were following current Office of Personnel Management guidelines on hiring, and that they have the ability to weed out bad actors. Moreover, they claim to already consider "prior conduct and performance issues" before making job offers to ex-employees.
But George said that did not explain why so many problem applicants were rehired and why nearly 20 percent of them had new performance problems after rehiring, the Times reported.
The inspector general said the IRS seemed concerned that it could be breaking the law if it examined previous behavioral problems of rehired employees.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch said the findings were stunning, given they were released the same week that President Barack Obama proposed a substantial increase in the IRS budget, which includes hiring another 9,000 agency workers.
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