IRS places two on leave for accepting free food

WASHINGTON -- Moving quickly to address yet another controversy, the Internal Revenue Service placed two officials on administrative leave for accepting free food at a party in a private suite at a lavish IRS conference in 2010, the agency said yesterday.

The officials accepted $1,100 worth of food and other items, two congressional aides said. The IRS said in a statement that the agency "has started the process to remove the employees pending a further review."

The action comes as the IRS faces mounting criticism for lavish spending on employee conferences, and for improperly targeting conservative political groups. The agency's inspector general issued a report on Tuesday that said the IRS spent nearly $50 million on employee conferences from 2010 through 2012.

The two officials were disciplined for accepting free food at a 2010 conference in Anaheim, Calif., the IRS said. The conference cost $4.1 million, making it the agency's most expensive conference during the three-year period, the inspector general's report said.

"When I came to IRS, part of my job was to hold people accountable," acting IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said in a statement. "There was clearly inappropriate behavior involved in this situation, and immediate action is needed."

Werfel is scheduled to testify today at a congressional hearing about IRS spending on employee conferences. The agency says it has imposed new regulations prohibiting expensive conferences, and that spending on conferences fell from $37.6 million in the 2010 budget year to $4.9 million in 2012.

The IRS did not publicly identify the workers put on leave, but two congressional aides said one is Frederick Schindler, a top deputy in the IRS office that oversees implementation of the new health care law.