Obama to Contractors: Pay Your Taxes or Else

President Obama will direct the OMB, Treasury Department and other federal agencies to block contractors who are delinquent on their taxes from winning new government contracts.  He also plans to direct the IRS to review the tax returns of contractors.

The President will also call on Congress to grant the government more authority to deny contracts to scofflaws.

President Obama said “By issuing this directive, all of us in Washington will be required to be more responsible stewards of your tax dollars…You do your jobs. You support your families. You pay the taxes you owe – because it’s a fundamental responsibility of citizenship. The steps I’m directing today and the steps I’m calling on Congress to take are just basic common-sense…Going forward, we’ll also have to do more to hold contractors more accountable not just for paying taxes, but for following other laws as well.”

This latest directive builds on a piece of legislation Obama sponsored in the Senate, giving oversight officials more power to recoup delinquent taxes or stop firms who owe the IRS back taxes from winning contracts.

The memo the President will sign at today’s event is available HERE.

Posted by Jim Garrettson on Wednesday, January 20th, 2010. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry