A Whopping 215K Federal Employees Were Tax-Delinquent in 2024: IG Report

Some 215,000 federal civilian employees owed the government money in unpaid taxes in Fiscal Year 2024, according to a May 6 report by the Treasury Inspector General (IG) for Tax Administration.The number grew by more than 40% since Fiscal Year 2021, despite a growth of only 4% in the federal civilian workforce, marking yet another unsung failure of the Biden administration. While the IG proposes partial policy solutions, the extent of tax delinquency among federal workers suggests a deeper, moral crisis.

In Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 (which ran from October 2020 to September 2021), some 149,000 federal civilian taxpayers (4.9% of the workforce) were behind on their taxes. This could possibly be related to the COVID pandemic, but government employees were paid regularly throughout that period.

However, since then, the delinquency rate only skyrocketed. In FY2022, 180,000 federal civilian employees (6.0%) were delinquent. In FY2023, delinquency reached 191,000 employees (6.2%);