Behind on Their Taxes: Hill Staffers, Feds, Retirees

House and Senate staffers owed $9.3 million in overdue taxes at the end of last year, the Washington Post reports. That's a small slice of the total owed by current federal employees and retirees as whole, but it could provide further fuel for efforts that stalled earlier this year to pass legislation requiring executive branch agencies and congressional offices to fire employees who are behind on their taxes.

A total of 638 employees, or about 4 percent, of the 18,000 workers on Capitol Hill owe money to the IRS. That's higher than the 3 percent of overall total of federal workers across government who owe back taxes, according data released earlier this year.

In the executive branch, according to IRS data, nearly 28,000 Postal Service workers owe more than $283 million, and about 12,000 employees at the Veterans Affairs Department owe almost $157 million.

Also worth noting is that 84,034 military retirees owed more than $1.5 billion at the end of 2009, and 40,000 civilian retirees owed $454 million.

In the category of employees who may be in the wrong line of work, three people at the Office of Government Ethics owed a total of $75,000 in back taxes.