PSH-24-0096 - In the Matter of Personnel Security Hearing

On August 2, 2024, an Administrative Judge determined that the Individual's access authorization should not be restored under 10 C.F.R. Part 710. In July 2023, the Individual signed and submitted a Questionnaire for National Security Positions (QNSP), in which he disclosed that he failed to file his federal and state income taxes for tax years 2018-2020. He subsequently submitted a Letter of Interrogatory (LOI) response disclosing that he had not filed his federal and state income taxes for 2022. He stated that he had not filed his taxes because all of his 2018 financial records that he had stored in his online financial software program had disappeared. He also stated that he and his wife had not filed their 2022 joint tax return due to an alleged W-2 error by his wife's former employer. At the hearing, the Individual admitted that although he had lost his digital financial records, his decision not to file his taxes was not an issue of the information being unavailable because he had the ability to do the line-by-line work required to reconstruct his financial records to prepare and file his taxes . He admitted that he had procrastinated and also chose not to hire a tax professional until six months prior to the hearing because he thought it was costly, despite asserting in his LOI response that his net worth was more than $2.2 million. The Individual submitted evidence showing he had filed his federal and state income tax returns for 2018 and 2019. However, he had not yet filed his 2020 taxes. In addition, regarding his 2022 taxes, he admitted that he was informed in February 2024 by the IRS that he could file his taxes if he completed the dispute form that the IRS sent to him. Nevertheless, he had not filed the dispute form and still had not filed his 2022 taxes. The Administration Judge found that the Individual had not mitigated the Guideline F concerns and, accordingly, concluded that Individual's access authorization should not be restored. (OHA Case No. PSH-24-0096, Balzon)