Your Tax Dollars (Secretly) at Work

Washington has this cool, new database to keep tabs on contractors spending your money. 

Just one hitch - you are not allowed to see it.

It's called the Past Performance Information Retrieval System (PPIRS).  You can go to the website:  http://www.ppirs.gov/ , but you won't be able to tap into it. It's reserved for bureaucrats who decide what contractors to hire.

Washington spends $200 billion a year of your money on government contracts.  PPIRS doesn't have info on all that money, but it does keep track of more than 300,000 companies paid with your tax dollars.

That's kind of important. 

A General Accounting Office report back in February found that a lot of contractors - who are paid with your tax dollars - weren't paying their taxes.About 27,000 of them owed a combined $3 billion to the Treasury. 

And the GAO found that a lot of them kept billing Uncle Sam, even as they failed to pay him what they owed.The GAO also found that the IRS didn't do much to track down the delinquent contractors. 

They turned their report over to a Congressional subcommittee, but because of privacy laws, they weren't allowed to tell the names of the delinquent contractors, not even to the subcommittee.  At the time, the Washington Post reported some interesting things about the report, and the subcommittee's reaction to it: 

• The missing money includes payroll taxes -- Social Security and Medicare -- as well as income taxes
• Most appear to be small businesses. 
• Musicians, dentists and repair people also appear on the list.
• Some cases involved substantial sums and clever accounting ideas to pocket money from the Defense Department. 

 
Look at one case the GAO found: 

• One contractor providing "base support and custodial services," collected $3.5 million in payments from Washington -- while owing nearly $10 million in back taxes. 
• The owner borrowed $1 million from the business, and bought a boat, several cars and a home outside the country with business funds.
• The business was dissolved in 2003 and its employees were transferred to a related business.
• That new business now receives payments from the Defense Department.

 
The new database would be a great way to track down where money's going.  Maybe the IRS could tap into it and make sure those making money off taxpayers are making tax payments like the rest of us.  But, just like you and me, the IRS isn't allowed to check up on these contractors.

Even though you and I and the IRS can't tap into the database, we pay $500,000 a year to run it.

Wonder if that's paid to a contractor. 

We could look it up…oh, yeah. 

We can't.