Tax-delinquent federal workers

The federal government has given them a job. The least they can do is pay their taxes on time.

This clear admonition is directed against 98,000 federal workers who owed $1.03 billion in unpaid taxes at the end of fiscal 2010, according to the Internal Revenue Service.

Offenders include employees of the Postal Service, Defense Department, Education Department, Social Security Administration, executive branch and, of course, Congress.

Indeed, about 4 percent, or 684 of 18,000 congressional staffers, were in arrears amounting to $10.6 million that year.

Congressional staffers aren't even the worst offenders. That designation goes to civilian employees of the Defense Department, with some 25,000 owing $225 million. And of those in the military, 2 percent of active duty and 2 percent of reservists owed nearly $340 million.

Meanwhile, slightly less than 2 percent of 1.8 million federal retirees tracked by the IRS owed $470 million at the end of fiscal 2010.

Federal employees' average pay and benefits total $124,000 a year — twice that of private-sector workers. So, you'd think they would be better equipped than most people to pay their taxes on time.

That they don't is "totally unacceptable and disrespectful to hardworking American taxpayers," Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) told the Washington Post.

The figures are significant but they pale in comparison to what U.S. taxpayers, overall, owed for the same period — $114. 2 billion in unpaid taxes, interest and penalties.

Still, these are people who nonetheless help pay salaries of federal employees, delinquent taxes or not.

Chaffetz and Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) have sponsored bills that would force federal agencies, the Postal Service and congressional offices to fire employees who purposely avoid paying taxes (with some exceptions for extreme financial hardship).

Chaffetz's bill was approved by a House panel last spring, while Coburn's has stalled in a Senate committee.

At a time when lawmakers are giving lip service to spending reform, this would be a good time to put words into action, and get behind Chaffetz and Coburn's legislation.

Tax delinquents should not be permitted to remain on the federal payroll. That goes for the payrolls of state and local governments, too.