|
|
Article: Defense contractors owe unpaid taxes; Privacy laws prevent Defense Department from seeking tax records
- Article from:
- Telegraph - Herald (Dubuque)
- Article date:
- February 13, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2004 Telegraph - Herald (Dubuque). Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
|
WASHINGTON (AP) - Privacy laws hamstring the Defense Department's
ability to prevent government contracts from going to businesses that
owe unpaid taxes, Pentagon and Internal Revenue Service officials
said Thursday.
Their statements came after congressional investigators found that
27,000 defense contractors owed a total of $3 billion in unpaid
taxes. Auditors at the General Accounting Office, the investigative
arm of Congress, studied taxes owed in the budget year that ended
Sept. 30, 2002.
The secrecy laws prevent the Defense Department from asking the
IRS whether a prospective contractor is delinquent in its tax