October 10, 2003
GILES FILES
By
Duncan Giles
President
NTEU Chapter 49
On this & that......
First I'd like to welcome our new Officers and Steward. Marcia Loop
(a Tax Auditor in SB/SE) takes over as Treasurer for Brian Kosteck and Cynthia
Underwood (an Associate Advocate in TAS) follows Michelle Borders as Secretary.
I'd like to thank Brian & Michelle for their service as officers and
welcome Marcia & Cynthia. Of course, the fabulous Susan Wright remains
as our VP. We've also picked up Karla Weidekamp from SB/SE Insolvency as
a Steward.
TEC employees were recently given talking points to respond to practitioners
about the good (????) idea of contracting out collection work. They do acknowledge
it hasn't been passed yet but this seems to me to be very close to politicking
through employees a policy that could very well reduce future employment.
If TEC leadership thinks this is a great idea that's fine but making rank-and-file
employees shill for pending legislation is just wrong.
Thanks for the great reception I received in Columbus on the 3rd. Good issues
were brought up - not the least of which was the condition of their building.
We hope to get them moved (or their digs renovated massively) in 2004 (he
said while knocking on wood). At the Evansville office, we hope employees
there will get the same treatment as Columbus at the same time or shortly
thereafter.
We've also received word of a new TIGTA initiative nationwide. This involves
employees’ tax returns. From my understanding, a group of Revenue Agents &
Tax Compliance Officers were selected to audit these returns.
They had the option (?) of choosing to do this or not. The details we
have at this point are sketchy on exactly how this will work and how many
employees will be selected. I have heard that if you have a Schedule C on
your return you can probably expect to get a letter asking for info on these
returns. I also understand that the results of these audits will then go to
TIGTA to see if they need to take any action, particularly if there are changes
on the return that are made as a result of the audit. Per National NTEU
President Colleen Kelley, there will be a Weingarton warning in the letter.
This is the warning TIGTA gives to employees when discussing administrative
matters. It requires you to give truthful answers to their questions or you
can be terminated. This does allow you to have an NTEU representative in the
TIGTA interview with you if you get called in based on the audit findings,
as well as your tax professional. I would say if you get called in on
this issue, contact NTEU right away to assist you.
That’s it for now.
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CONGRESS AND
CONTRACTING OUT
Activity on Capitol Hill is heating up on issues that could very well impact
the future of your job. Here’s what we know as we go to press.
On October 1st, the Senate Finance Committee passed an international
corporate reform bill containing a provision allowing IRS to hire private
collection contractors to do some of the agency’s collection work. Even
though IRS management claims the private collectors will only be assigned
work that IRS collection employees are unable to perform due to work load
and will not cause any IRS employee to lose a job, NTEU remains concerned
about the precedent being set here. These contractors will be paid based on
the amount of money collected (up to 25%), which we believe will lead to
abuse of taxpayer rights. NTEU continues to cite data clearly showing IRS
employees can collect this money better and cheaper than any private contractor,
and can do so while complying with the rules protecting the rights of the
public. NTEU has only begun to fight. We will make every effort to
ask Senators on the Finance Committee to reconsider this. We will work
with Senators to have an amendment offered on the Senate floor taking out
this collection contracting provision. We will work with the House Ways
and Means Committee to keep this out.
Meanwhile, NTEU continues the battle to slow down the White House push to
contract-out the maximum number of federal employee jobs. The House
has already passed the Van Hollen Amendment aimed at keeping the rules that
allow fair competition rules. We expect two amendments to be offered
to the Treasury funding bill (S-1589), one called the Kennedy Amendment, the
other the Mikulski/Landrieu Amendment. If you oppose the White House efforts
to contract more of our jobs to the private sector, we urge you to contact
our Indiana Senators.
Write to Richard Lugar, 306 Hart Senate Office Building, Washington,, DC
20510-1401, phone 202-224-4814, e-mail at senator_lugar@lugar.senate.gov.
Contact Evan Bayh at 463 Russell Building, United States Senate, Washington,
DC 20510, phone 202-224-5623, e-mail at senator@bayh.senate.gov
One major caution - never use government time, equipment (including the
IRS e-mail system) or phones to contact members of Congress.
We expect Congressional activity to pick up in the next few weeks. For the
most up-to-date information, check our chapter Internet Web site at www.nteu49.org.
OT RULES BATTLE
The Bush Administration is pushing a set of rules that would limit a large
number of American workers' (including federal employees) eligibility for
overtime pay. The House has voted to instruct a conference committee
to go along with a Senate provision that would prevent the Department of Labor
from enforcing the Bush Administration's proposal to greatly restrict the
availability of OT. This is an important step in our efforts to fight this
White House attack on OT pay. However, our NTEU Legislative Department
is concerned that the House leadership will attempt to instruct the House
conferees to ignore the wishes of the House in the most recent vote.
President Bush has also threatened a veto of this bill if the OT Senate language
is included in this bill to protect our overtime rules.
Contact your member of the House and let him/her know that you want the
House conferees to follow the vote instructing conferees to follow the Senate
provisions of the overtime rule. You can find the address, phone number
and e-mail address of your House member checking the “Links” section of our
Web site at www.nteu49.org or contact any chapter 49 steward or officer and
we’ll get the information for you. Once again, be careful not to use
government equipment or time to contact an elected official.