Another embarrassing taxpayer-funded IRS video has surfaced.
In March, a lame IRS parody of Star Trek with IRS employees as actors made for an agency training and leadership conference in Anaheim, Calif., prompted an apology from government officials. In another unfunny video that that was just turned over to House of Representatives investigators in a Friday “document dump” (so named for a technique for disclosing damaging information right before the weekend when no none would pay attention), IRS employees are shown learning how to line dance on stage.
Reportedly an Inspector General’s report is on the way that accuses the Internal Revenue Service of wasteful spending for that conference. According to Acting IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel , “While there were legitimate reasons for holding the meeting, many of the expenses associated with it were inappropriate and should not have occurred.”
Upon receipt of the IRS dancing video, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Boustany was less-than-impressed with the tax collecting agency’s fancy footwork or its failed attempt at humor: “Whether it is the tens of thousands of hard-earned taxpayer dollars spent to produce frivolous entertainment for agency bureaucrats, or the IRS’s own admission that it targeted the American people based on their personal beliefs, the outrage toward the IRS is only growing stronger … Clearly this is an agency where abuse and waste is the norm and not the exception. It is clear that this is a broken agency that is empowered by a broken tax code. We need to fix this and make not only the agency, but the tax code, more effective and efficient.”
The Star Trek video released back in March cost the taxpayer an estimated $60,000. A video skit based on Gilligan’s Island that has yet to be released apparently was filmed at the same time. Both were produced at the IRS television studio in Maryland, which itself reportedly cost the American people about $4 million in 2012.
Even Captain Kirk himself blasted the Star Trek parody at the time. William Shatner said he was “appalled at the utter waste of US tax dollars.”
Near the end of the footage, one of the employees admits that “And I thought doing the Star Trek video was humiliating.”
Watch the IRS line dancing video (with evidently some of the same employees as in the aforementioned Star Trek parody):
This week the IRS failed to comply with a Congressional deadline for turning over more documents pertinent to the ongoing investigation of the wrongful targeting of Tea Party and other politically conservative groups who had submitted applications for nonprofit status.
