Their Fair Share, Government Edition

Pay as we say, not as we do:

A Treasury Department watchdog office said Thursday that 70 federal agencies owed about $14 million in unpaid taxes at the end of last year.

Federal agencies are exempt from paying federal income taxes, but they are responsible for turning over employment taxes, mainly Social Security and Medicare taxes, that their employees must pay.

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration said 40 of these delinquent tax accounts totaling about $2.6 million were still open three years after being identified, and in 80 percent of those cases, the investigations had been suspended. The offending agencies were not identified.

The $14 million isn't a lot compared to the $768 billion in employment taxes the IRS collected in 2011.

But Inspector General J. Russell George stressed that "federal agencies must comply with the same filing and paying standards that apply to all American taxpayers."

Yes, except apparently when they don't have to...