$60,000 of taxpayer money was spent on this Star Trek parody IRS employee training video — here's what America got in exchange.
Watch the IRS Star Trek training video.
"Space: the final frontier
These are the voyagers of the Starship Enterprise Y
Its never-ending mission is to seek out new tax forms
To explore strange new regulations
To boldly go where no government employee has gone before."
Image by CBS / YouTube
A six-minute Star Trek parody filmed by the Internal Revenue Service has landed the agency in hot water with Congress and sparked outrage from American taxpayers, who footed the bill for the $60,0000 "training video."
The Star Trek skit, along with another video parodying Gilligan's Island, were filmed at the IRS's television studio in Maryland for a 2010 training and leadership conference. CBS News filed a Freedom of Information request asking for the videos after the IRS refused to turn them over to the House Committee on Ways and Means. The agency released the video to the network on March 22nd.
"Taxpayers are furious about this," House Ways and Means Committee member Rep. Charles Boustany (R-LA) told Fox News on Monday. "I'm furious about it. You know, the IRS has come to us repeatedly wanting more resources to hire more people, claiming they cannot do their job, they -- you know, they need more resources, and yet they do something really outrageous like this, which is a complete waste."
"The IRS recognizes and takes seriously our obligation to be good stewards of government resources and taxpayer dollars," the agency said in a statement to the Associated Press. "There is no mistaking that this video did not reflect the best stewardship of resources."
American taxpayers may find it hard to watch the whole video. These GIFs present the highlights of the $60,000 parody.
An animated IRS spaceship resembling a flying brick.
Image by Ellie Hall/Buzzfeed
Characters and a set from Star Trek: The Original Series and uniforms from Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Image by Ellie Hall/Buzzfeed
