Government workers as tax cheats

Fair Share: Obama Staffers Owe $833,970 in Back Taxes

This is your regular reminder that the best taxers aren’t always the best taxees:

A new report just out from the Internal Revenue Service reveals that 36 of President Obama’s executive office staff owe the country $833,970 in back taxes.

This per the IRS. Federal employees as a group owe a whopping $3.4 billion in unpaid taxes, including 1,181 employees of the Treasury Department delinquent on a total of $9.3 million in taxes. (But do you recall the most famous delinquent of all? Tim Geithner had to pay $42,000 in back taxes before his confirmation as Treasury Secretary.)

Minus departments with relatively small workforces (e.g. “The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation” and its 53 employees), which make for bad samples, some of the federal bodies with the highest tax delinquency rates are: The Government Printing Office (6.81%), he Small Business Administration (5.37%), the Smithsonian Institution (5.03%), the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency (4.63% — also, the what now?), and the Federal Reserve Board of Governors (4.86%!).

And just for the sweet, sweet irony, I’ll note that among the worst of the small department offenders, with 77 employees and a 6.49% delinquency rate? The U.S Office of Government Ethics.