IRS spending included hotel suites and an artist who drew famous people. | Reuters, AP Photo IRS spending report: Luxury

The hits keep coming for the IRS.

While it grapples with the fallout from the tea party targeting scandal, it’s facing new charges of wasteful spending.


A watchdog report released Tuesday includes potentially embarrassing examples of spending at conferences, including $17,000 paid to a keynote speaker whose specialty was painting unique pictures. He produced images of Michael Jordan, Bono, Albert Einstein and Abraham Lincoln at the IRS event.

Agency employees received hotel upgrades and a deputy commissioner spent five nights in a two-bedroom presidential suite at the Anaheim, Calif., Hilton.

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And, of course, the IRS spent about $50,000 producing parodies of “Star Trek.”

In total, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration found that the IRS spent about $49 million on conferences between 2010 and 2012.

It’s a dollar figure that has shocked many in Washington.

“Taxpayer money meant to pay for a core agency mission, the hiring of more enforcement personnel, was instead spent on a lavish party,” House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa said in a statement.

Issa has raised stinks before about agency spending on conferences, but the IRS example seems to eclipse other examples. The inspector general’s report indicates that the seven conferences the IRS held in 2010 each cost more than the $822,000 General Services Administration retreat in Las Vegas that set off a firestorm in Congress last year.

( WATCH: IRS 'Star Trek' parody video)

The California Republican on Thursday is holding a committee hearing on the report, bringing in Faris Fink, the commissioner of the small business and self-employed division, which hosted a 2010 conference in Anaheim, which is the focus of Tuesday’s report. Fink was a deputy commissioner at the time of the conference and was the official who stayed in a presidential suite.

TIGTA said it started its investigation into this particular event after receiving a tip about excessive spending.

The IRS, which knew the report would be released Tuesday, has been on the defense for the past few days, pointing to the vast decline in conference costs over the past two years.

( Also on POLITICO: Dance video release puts IRS in hot seat)

“The number of larger conferences — defined as those with 50 or more participants — went down dramatically between FY 2010 and 2012,” an IRS spokesman said in a statement. “Costs for these meetings fell from $37.6 million in [fiscal] 2010 to $6.2 million in [fiscal] 2011 and under $4.9 million in [fiscal] 2012.”

But that’s unlikely to stop lawmakers from lashing out at Fink on Thursday.

The Anaheim conference brought 2,609 executives and managers in the IRS’s small business and self-employed division to California. TIGTA was unable to verify the total cost of the conference because IRS procedures at the time of the conference didn’t require management to track and report conference costs.

( PHOTOS: 8 key players in the IRS scandal story)

One of the most controversial aspects of the event — aside from the cost — is that the conference was paid for, in part, by about $3.2 million in leftover tax enforcement funds. That’s sure to anger lawmakers who have spent years listening to the IRS beg for money, arguing that tax fraud is rampant and could be curbed by providing more resources to the agency.

In an April letter to TIGTA, the IRS said the conference, called Leading Into the Future, was scheduled because 30 percent of the small business division’s managers were new or had just been promoted. The IRS said the conference also focused on safety and security training following a suicide attack on an IRS facility in Texas.

The conference included 15 outside speakers who were paid about $135,350, including the keynote speaker who was paid for his artistic abilities.

This is also where the much-maligned “Star Trek” parody and Cupid Shuffle dance videos starring IRS employees — including Fink as Spock — debuted. Video production costs totaled more than $50,000.

Employees were also given trinkets to take home, including souvenir bags valued at $15,000, $6,000 worth of lanyards, $1,500 worth of travel mugs and clocks. In total, the IRS spent $64,000 on gifts.

The IRS agreed with all TIGTA recommendations, including that IRS track and verify conference costs, use in-house employees to set up conferences when possible and outline when videos actually enhance learning.

TIGTA says Congress and the White House have taken numerous steps to cut waste over the past two years. Obama signed an executive order in November 2011, directing agencies to try to host conferences in government spaces to curb costs, and the Office of Management and Budget in spring 2012 prohibited agencies from spending more than $500,000 on a single conference, requiring them to put the total costs on their websites if it exceeded $100,000.

Treasury has limited the use of outside event planners, and the IRS also has taken steps to reduce travel and conference costs.

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