The Internal Revenue Service's new inspector general may scrutinize more auditors and tax collectors next year, but will not set quotas for misconduct investigations, the Treasury Department's inspector general for tax administration said Thursday.
An internal e-mail obtained by the New York Times was misinterpreted to mean that the new Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) office would set quotas for misconduct investigations in 2000, said David C. Williams, who has headed the office since May.
"We're trying to take steps to make it clear to our folks that we think this may be what's coming at them, not what they are required to do," Williams said of the reported goal of 5,000 misconduct investigations next year.
National Treasury Employees Union President Colleen M. Kelly said a predetermined artificial quota would mean investigations were being conducted whether or not there was a need for them. Investigations "should be done when allegations are warranted, based on facts, not on some predetermined number," she said.
TIGTA was created under the IRS Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998, and was designed to replace the former IRS Inspection Service with a more independent investigative unit that focused on administrative, rather than criminal, misconduct investigations.
The new TIGTA staff did an analysis of past workloads to "determine how many noncriminal misconduct cases might be coming at us," Williams said. Williams alerted his investigative field offices of last year's figures, which included 1,420 investigations of IRS employees, 1,505 of external parties, and 2,775 that were turned over to the IRS.
Based on those numbers, Williams told employees to expect as many as 5,000 new misconduct cases this year. "We would not characterize it [as a quota]. Today we stated very clearly that our goal is to provide comprehensive investigative services," Williams said.
Kelly said she is concerned about the alarm this news has set off among NTEU members. NTEU's goal is to "clear up the element of fear that is out there now among the employees," she said.
Kelly and IRS officials are meeting to clarify what was meant by TIGTA's stated goal.
NEXT STORY: Y2K costs government, businesses $100 billion