Whistleblower Retaliation – My Experience
I was an IRS tax collector and manager and I was good at it.
One day I overheard two other managers discussing a novel idea to increase collection statistics. Problem was, it was illegal to do what they were doing. It was in another IRS district, I thought, but it was troubling nevertheless. I was in the Pacific Northwest Region of the IRS at the time.
My highest direct manager was the Chief of Collection. I wrote a memo to him detailing what I saw as a serious problem and why it was illegal. I thought, it doesn’t behoove the IRS to break the law while enforcing other laws.
It seemed simple. I would tell him in detail what I discovered and why it was illegal, then I’d let the system do its job. Of course, I thought, we’d fix the problem. That was the right thing to do and we tried to do the right thing, didn’t we? After all, we were the government and we were expected to act in citizens’ best interests.
I sent the memo up through my branch chief, thinking I had done my good deed for the day. I thought he would be pleased. I was so naïve.
A few days later the memo came back with a big NO on its face. Weird, huh? Didn’t anyone care that we were breaking the law and abusing innocent taxpayers? It seemed like no one did.
I re-wrote the memo a week later and sent it back up though my boss. I stressed how harmful it would be to the IRS if this ever came out or if the press got ahold of it. I said it was urgent to take steps to stop what we were doing. It seemed obvious to me that we needed to get ahead of the story and stop what we were doing. It was bound to get out, I thought.
A week passed. My branch chief visited me in Olympia. He angrily handed me my second memo and told me never to raise the issue again. It finally dawned on me. My senior management was in on the game. They benefitted from the illegally inflated collection numbers and they didn’t want to change a thing.
Another week passed. I decided to write a similar memo to our local Congressional representative. She hated the IRS and I knew it would get her attention. At the time, Congress was holding oversight hearings about IRS abuses. This would give her something to say. I expected to be called to testify.
My boss made another unexpected visit. I was busy at my keyboard. He asked what I was doing. I said, “I’m writing another memo about that illegal collection scheme.”
He was very angry, shouting at me, “I told you not to bring that up again!”
I said, “This isn’t for internal consumption.”
He asked, “Then who is it for?”
“I’m writing it for our local Congresswoman.”
He was so angry that he turned purple. He yanked the papers out of my hand and said, “I order you to stay in this building until I get back to you.”
Well, OK, I had plenty of other work to do. I could hear him shouting over the phone in another room. He came back to my office. “We want to make a deal,” he said.
A deal? The IRS doesn’t make deals with its employees. I was suspicious. He continued, “If we take this to the Office of Chief Counsel, in DC, will you be satisfied with their answer?”
That was our highest level of legal expertise. I thought, why not? If I was wrong, I’d have to eat my words but I was sure I was right. I said, “When?”
He said, “In two days.”
I said, “OK, I can live with that if you can.”
Sure enough, two days later a representative from the office of the Assistant Commissioner for Collection sat down with a National Office attorney. He explained the problem and she read my latest memo. She said, “You’re not really doing this, are you?”
“Well, yes, we are.”
She said, “I order you to stop this immediately. Today. Then give me a list of whom you have subjected to this, how much is involved in each case and what you plan to do to refund their money. I’ll expect your first report by the end of the day.”
That’s the story but not the retaliation. National Office was pleased. I was given the highest awards in the IRS and in the Treasury Department. I was an IRS celebrity for a moment.
Then came my annual rating report. I was good at my job and, naively, I expected a good rating. That wasn’t the case. I got a poor one. It was grossly unfair. I filed an “Institutional Grievance” in protest. It was upheld, my rating was changed and I went back to me job. Retaliation #1.
I was invited to teach an advanced slot at an IRS CPE. I was also an attendee at the conference. A man gave a presentation about a new program he was involved in. I was well versed in that particular area of tax law. At the end he asked for questions. I stood up and said, “I’ve worked with you in that area. Nothing you’ve said here is true. Let me explain.”
I was right but because of what I said, my division chief gave me a three-day suspension “for creating a hazardous work environment.” I grieved that, too, and it was reduced to “a verbal warning in writing.” Yes, there was such a thing. Retaliation #2.
I transferred to the Eugene, Oregon, IRS office. A new branch chief came in. She called me to say that she didn't like what I was doing and she was going to eliminate my job and send me back to the field. I said, "Do you realize I'm collecting $20 million a year?"
"That doesn't matter. You belong in the field working cases and that's where I'm going to put you. That's final."
So, she did. One week later she "re-created" the position and assigned one of her friends to it, someone who, of course, knew nothing about estate tax collection. I really hate careerists. Retaliation #3.
There is a current scandal about FBI retaliation against whistleblowers. I believe the accusations. I experienced the same bitter pettiness in the IRS from insecure, little people. It’s time to create a government work environment where employees are free to follow their consciences. To the extent there are codes of conduct for managers, they are flawed. Fix them.
“If you know better, you do better. If you do better, you get better.” – Philip Bridler
