IRS Lied to Senator Coburn About Costs of Extravagant Conferences

The Internal Revenue Service, which is already in hot water for concealing its abuse of conservative nonprofits from Congress, may also have lowballed a U.S. senator who asked last year how much of the taxpayers’ money it was spending on lavish parties for staffers.

According to a report issued Friday by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), IRS officials spent more than $49 million on more than 200 conferences for employees between 2010 and 2012.

But last year, when Republican Sen. Tom Coburn asked then-Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner how much IRS had spent on conferences during that exact period, Treasury replied that the federal tax collector had spent only $500,000 on just five conferences.

That’s a fraction of what the IRS spent on just one $4.1 million conference in Anaheim, California, during which attendees were treated to a $17,000 keynote speaker who performance-painted portraits of celebrities. According to the TIGTA report, IRS festivities also included parody videos of “Star Trek” and an employee dance routine. Faris Fink, the commissioner of Small Business and Self-Employed division, who portrayed Spock in the “Star Trek” parody, reportedly stayed at the two-bedroom presidential suite at the Anaheim Hilton.

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