At least 13 companies receiving billions of dollars in bailout money owe more than $220 million in unpaid federal taxes, a lawmaker said Thursday.
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The lawmaker, Representative John Lewis, Democrat of Georgia and chairman of a House subcommittee overseeing the federal bailout, said two companies owed more than $100 million each.
The House Ways and Means Committee’s subcommittee on oversight discovered the unpaid taxes in a review of tax records from 23 of the companies receiving the most bailout money, Mr. Lewis said, as he opened a hearing on the issue.
“This is shameful; it is a disgrace,” he said. “We are going to get to the bottom of what is going on here.”
The subcommittee said it could not legally release the names of the companies owing taxes.
It said one recipient had almost $113 million in unpaid federal income taxes from 2005 and 2006. A second recipient owed almost $102 million dating to before 2004.
Mr. Lewis said that his panel planned to review tax records from other companies receiving federal money, but that he was unsure if it would look at every one.
Banks and other companies receiving federal money were required to sign contracts stating that they had no unpaid taxes, Mr. Lewis said. But he said the Treasury Department did not ask them to turn over their tax records.
The Internal Revenue Service, a division of the Treasury Department, said it would expect the unpaid taxes to be paid.
“The I.R.S. recognizes that those entities that receive taxpayer support have a special obligation to pay their taxes,” an agency spokesman, Frank Keith, said in a statement. “And these taxpayer accounts will remain closely monitored by the I.R.S. to ensure that the full amount of taxes due are paid.”
Mr. Keith said there could be many reasons for an unpaid balance, including the possibility that a bill was being challenged.
