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Saturday, Apr. 17, 1999

IRS moving to fire whistleblower agent

By CURT ANDERSON
Associated Press

   WASHINGTON -- Jennifer Long was a star witness, the first IRS agent to tell Congress about abuse of taxpayers without hiding her identity, and now steps are being taken to fire her despite years of strong performance ratings.
   The tax agency's commissioner is promising an investigation.
   Long, a revenue agent in Houston for 16 years, said she believes the action is retaliation for her fall 1997 testimony before the Senate Finance Committee. She acknowledges, however, that she went public then in part because of grievances against her Internal Revenue Service managers.
   "They are enraged," Long said in a telephone interview Friday. "They feel like I've betrayed the code of silence by testifying before Congress."
   Long said she was abruptly summoned away from an audit Thursday -- coincidentally, the same day Americans rushed to file their tax returns -- to a meeting with her superiors. She was handed a 13-page memo describing her alleged poor performance.
   "It was very upsetting. It was done in a very threatening way," she said. "It's clear that the conclusion has already been made."
   A few hours after word began circulating Friday in Washington about the action, Long said she was again summoned by her superiors and given a terse one-page notice stating that the earlier memo was "withdrawn until further notice." But Long said her bosses told her verbally that it would likely be temporary.
   "They're just trying to fool somebody," she said of the second memo. "This way they'll have the opportunity to tell everybody they rescinded it."
   Earlier this week, IRS Commissioner Charles Rossotti assured senators at a hearing that "we will take action" if retaliation against whistleblowers is substantiated. Some lawmakers expressed skepticism that reforms intended to make the IRS less heavy-handed will take hold with field managers who resist change.
   Rossotti said Friday he was "extremely disturbed that we may have taken an action that could be retaliatory" and sent Deputy Commissioner Bob Wenzel to Houston to review the case. In addition, the Treasury Department's tax inspector general will investigate, Rossotti said in a statement.
   "I will not tolerate retaliation against employees who come forward to testify before the Senate Finance Committee or who come forward to report allegations of wrongdoing," he said.
   Finance Committee Chairman William Roth, R-Del., said he was outraged by the action against Long and will focus on the Houston district office in future hearings.
   "This is a clear example of how some in the IRS's old management culture are using their power to destroy people, like Jennifer, who are trying to make the IRS a better place," Roth said.
   House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Archer, a Republican who represents part of Houston, called the action "completely and inexcusably wrong."
   The matter comes to light just as Rossotti is winning wide praise for his efforts to make the IRS less secretive, more responsive to taxpayers and more efficient. Rep. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, who co-chaired an IRS reform commission, said situations such as Long's raise questions about the long-term viability of the reforms.
   "We're talking about changing the culture of a 100,000-employee bureaucracy that has been locked into an enforcement mentality," said Portman. "This concerns me."
   The memo to Long from IRS Houston district manager Karie L. Gulley says Long's performance was judged "unacceptable" in June 1998, only a few months after she told Congress openly about how agents are held to numeric enforcement quotas that often result in violation of taxpayer rights.
   Other IRS agents had testified behind a dark cloak and with their voices electronically modified. "She was the turning point," said Roth aide Bill Nixon. "She was the critical witness."
   From 1993 through 1997, Long consistently got "fully successful" performance ratings, according to personnel records she provided.
   The memo, however, says Long's work "remains unacceptable" and gives her 68 days to improve or face dismissal. It lists numerous specific examples of how she allegedly failed to prioritize her audits, didn't use her time wisely, made incomplete work plans and sometimes did not gather sufficient evidence.
   "You will have the opportunity to demonstrate that you can perform at least the minimally successful level," Gulley's memo states. "I will be monitoring your performance closely."
   But to Long, that means she will surely fail. "They're just going to ride me and make sure I don't have time to do things," she said. "I will not be given a chance to improve."
   

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  © 1999 Corpus Christi Caller Times, a Scripps Howard newspaper. All rights reserved.