IRS parties big on our money

[vmax]

Faris Fink of the IRS....you can't make this kind of stuff up....

 

 

 

WASHINGTON — The tax official responsible for a lavish, $4.1 million conference in Anaheim apologized to Congress for spending at the conference — and for his performance as Mr. Spock in a Star Trek parody video.

 

"The fact of the matter is, Mr. chairman, it's embarrassing, I apologize," Faris Fink said of the two videos produced for the conference at a cost of $50,187.

Fink, the commissioner of the IRS' Small Business and Self-Employment Division, donned pointy ears for his role as the Vulcan commander on a mission to bring effective tax practices to a faraway planet. That video opened the division's conference in 2010 — the most expensive of the 225 conferences audited by the IRS's inspector general in a report this week.

"I swear to God, I have looked at that video over and over again, and I swear I do not see the redeeming value," said Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, which is investigating the $49 million in conference spending by the IRS from 2010 to 2012.

He produced a copy of an e-mail between two Marriott hotel employees in Anaheim, noting that Anaheim's bid for the conference was $1 million more than Orlando. "This sounds like the hotel employees were mocking you, and even taking advantage of the IRS," Cummings said.

STORY: IRS employee conferences cost taxpayers $49 million

Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said the Internal Revenue Service was "effectively guilty of tax evasion" when it gave employees lavish presidential suites, free meals and taxpayer-paid gifts without disclosing that as income. IRS officials said some local employees ineligible for travel expenses were given revised W-2 forms reflecting their expenses as taxable income.

That Anaheim conference cost at least $4.1 million — maybe more. When the IRS' own inspector general audited the Anaheim conference, he found the documentation lacking, Inspector General J. Russell George told the committee Thursday.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/06/06/irs-conferences-oversight-hearing/2395337/

 

"I thought they only did this in Baltimore!!!!"

 

 

 

[deeshopper]

"I thought they only did this in Baltimore!!!!"

 

 

 

 

That's hilarious.

[Spen]

Weird. First bad thing I ever heard about the IRS.

[papasmurfbell]

The people who did it should be fired. That said what about when the private sector does the same thing and then writes it off? Both ways they get to party on the peoples dime.

[deeshopper]

Weird. First bad thing I ever heard about the IRS.

 

I see what you did there.

[thundercleetz]

Wish I could have been invited to that party.