Earlier this year, the IRS announced they would be taking five furlough days due the sequester. The next of these furlough days was supposed to be Monday, July 22nd. The IRS announced today that the July 22nd furlough will not be happening:
“The IRS will be open for taxpayers that day as scheduled, and all employees will be paid for that day. This step follows a lot of hard work across the Service to cut costs,” Danny Werfel, IRS Principal Deputy Commissioner, said in a message to IRS employees.
Meanwhile, the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), the union that represents non-management IRS employees, isn’t happy about the cancellation of the $70 million in bonuses to IRS employees. I’m shocked that a union head is upset with pay decreases to union employees. Well, no…
As for those bonuses, they may end up being paid–I’m not a contract or labor attorney so I don’t know what was agreed to (or not agreed to). However, if the employees do get those bonuses they’ll likely regret it for years. Republicans in Congress are not happy with the IRS and have proposed a 24% budget cut. The idea of paying bonuses given the IRS scandal doesn’t sit well with the GOP. I suspect that if bonuses are paid in 2013, the chances of bonuses being paid in the next several years will be about zero.