IRS Inflates Employment Numbers Using Poll WorkersSeptember 16, 2010
The Internal Revenue Service, for the first time in history is ordering temporary election poll workers to file income tax withholding forms. In breaking news from New York, the New York City Board of Elections which uses over 34,000 temporary elections workers, was ordered by the IRS to make employees out of all temporary election workers.
The IRS denies giving any order but the Elections Board in New York received a memo dated Aug 2 signed by Rosanna Kostamoulas Rahmouni, Election Day Operations Coordinator. In the memo, Rahmouni directs election officials to have every poll worker complete a tax form W-4 and IT-2104 as needed.
Furthermore, election officials in New York were warned that if this was not completed promptly, they would not be paid for any training classes or for work performed on election day. Most poll workers are retirees and receive
$100 for training and $200 per each day they work.
The taxes for such a short period, normally one days work are so small, leaving many officials to wonder what is the real reason for filing the forms. Well, if you add up all of the election workers in all 50 states, you begin to see the reason for the IRS request. Hundreds of thousands of workers man polling booths and work counting ballots throughout the country during and election.
Much like the Census, if these temporary poll workers are used by the federal government, these numbers would affect the unemployment figures put out by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics each month, thus giving a misleading unemployment count for August ? November 2010.
