GAO: DOD paying billions to tax cheats

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4241880/

The Department of Defense paid billions of dollars in 2002 to more than 27,000 contractors that owed $3 billion in unpaid taxes, according to a draft copy of a General Accounting Office investigation obtained by NBC News.

Despite mechanisms in place since 1997 to help the government reclaim back taxes from federal contractors, the DOD has failed to fully implement those procedures, a move that would have “offset and collected at least $100 million,” the GAO says.

Instead, inconsistent participation by the DOD in the tax levy program, similar to those used to collect delinquent child support payments, has resulted in only $332,000 being collected from tax delinquent military contractors.

Most of the tax-dodging claims stem from contractors simply refusing to give the government the range of payroll taxes —Social Security, Medicare and federal income tax — they deduct from employee paychecks. Some of these contractors have unpaid taxes dating to the 1990s.

[htuttle]

1. KEEPING FICA WITHHOLDING?!? AND GETTING AWAY WITH IT?!?

Holy crap. I've been involved with a smaller/midsized business for 12 years, and I can only imagine the huge pile of punative bricks that would land on us if we tried that.

Wow. I can hardly believe they can get away with that!

[54anickel]

2. 27,000 contractors? I thought they only dealt with two. I want the 47

names!!!

The GAO said it found 47 particularly egregious cases in which potentially criminal activity took place; the companies aren’t identified in the study. In two cases, the business owners borrowed nearly $1 million from their firms while not sending the government the payroll taxes. One owner bought a boat, several cars and a home outside of the United States, the GAO said. The other paid more than $1 million for a home “despite having substantial unpaid payroll taxes,” the study says.

In both those cases, the contractors received “large payments” for work performed under government contract but “recently went out of business,” according to the study.

[cosmicdot]

6. LOL - 27,000 contractors ... thought we only dealt with two ... ha!

go for it -- the information can be helpful

let's get their names

it's a big job

surely someone monitors government contracts and contractors

let's open this bag of worms as wide as possible ...

the more sunshine the better



wonder how many of those 27,000 were competitively bid?

[artr2]

3. If you ran the companies that are cheating through

opensecrets.com I wonder how much they have given to the repukkks ?

[Bandit]

4. President Clinton had signed a bill that denied companies from

government contracts if they had broken any laws. Bush* overturned that one immediately. Crooks working for crooks and we are the ones getting robbed. Senator Kerry said this would be one of his biggest campaign issues. We'll see.

[cosmicdot]

5. whatever happened to DCAS?

Defense Contract Administration Services which audited government contractors and subcontracts to make sure the t's were crossed and i's dotted when it came 'to the books'?

I worked for a Defense Contractor in the early 80s, and our company went through information with a fine tooth comb to insure integrity of the federal contracting system: price and quality to passing down equal opportunity clauses and requirements ...

we had to 'justify' a catalog price ... just because it's written in a booklet doesn't make it fair and reasonable

I know there the Paperwork Reduction Act 'incentives' or dictates or whatever caused, if any, paperwork reduction might have effected some Federal Government/Defense Acquisition Regulations, Policies and Procedures, and there was a movement toward off-the-shelf items wanting less oversight, etc. ----> someone probably (Cheney) found this a lucrative new avenue.