IRS simply withholding information and lying to Congress

On June 2, I wrote about the IRS conferences being held between 2010 and 2012. During that period, the inspector general’s report indicated the agency spent upwards of $50 million on conferences. About a year ago, then Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner – or someone answering his mail – outright lied and claimed the department had only spent $500,000 on conferences between 2005 and 2012.

From The Daily Caller.

“On April 16, 2012, I [Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.)] wrote to then-Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner requesting a full listing of all conferences attended by department employees during fiscal years 2010, 2011, and 2012, including the title, location, date, and number of employees who attended,” Coburn’s letter reads.  “Additionally, the letter requested a full listing of conferences that received financial support from the agency, including those where it was the primary host, a sponsor, or provided some other support.

“In response, Treasury provided a list titled ‘Treasury Departmental Offices Overnight Conferences (1/1/2005 – 6/1/2012) Attended by 50 or more Treasury Staff.’ On that list, there were only five conferences, with a total cost under $500,000.  Only one of these conferences took place during the time period requested in the letter. None were related to the IRS or its employees,” Coburn writes.

Anybody want to bet Geithner would claim he made an “unintended” error and left out a couple of zeros?

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Steve McGough

Steve's a part-time conservative blogger. Steve grew up in Connecticut and has lived in Washington, D.C. and the Bahamas. He resides in Connecticut, where he’s comfortable six months of the year.

1 Comment

  1. Lynn on June 8, 2013 at 5:00 pm

    Ok, here’s the problem, if we try to report less than we actually make on our income tax, the IRS already has the facts from our workplace or investments. So can’t we demand our CBO have departments ?report their conference and training expenses directly to them??



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