Scott Amey over at the Project on Government Oversight reminded us on Monday that there has been a lot of long overdue action in Washington this month to hold federal contractors more accountable. Scott has a nice summary of some of the bills garnering attention in the House and a few other snipits from the past few weeks related to federal contracting. (Read Scott's summary). Two of the bills Scott mentions (H.R. 5712 and H.R. 3033 will be considered on the House floor this week. Another one, H.R. 3928 - which would require disclosure of the names and salaries of the most highly compensated officers of any contractor receiving more than 80 percent of their annual gross review from federal contracts, will also be considered on the floor this week.
In addition, House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) - who you can give a great deal of the credit for getting many of the current efforts off the ground - sent letters yesterday to KBR, Inc., and 14 other contractors who are working in Iraq and Afghanistan requesting information about the use of off-shore subsidiaries to reduce federal tax liability (KRB, Inc. letter, Sample of letter to other contractors).
This request is a follow-up to a briefing given to the House committee by employees of KBR, Inc. at the end of March after it was disclosed in the Boston Globe that KBR used offshore subsidiaries to avoid payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare. The House has already begun to correct this loophole with legislation (H.R. 5602) that would treat foreign subsidiaries performing services under contract with the government as American companies for the purposes of payroll taxes. But it is good Waxman is continuing to dig for more dirt on the tax evasion techniques of federal contractors and general waste and abuse of federal resources - something he has gotten used to doing during his career, according to this profile of Waxman in The Hill newspaper.
Update: Another upcoming item on contracting I neglected to mention is an oversight hearing being held by Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) in the Democratic Policy Committee on contract abuses in Iraq. Dorgan and the DPC will hear testimony on April 28 at 2:00 pm from three whistleblowers who were former employees with contractors working in Iraq. The hearing will be in room 406 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.
Posted by Adam Hughes