I.R.S. Spends over $60K on "Star Trek" & "Gilligan's Island" themed Training Videos

In what William Shatner described as an, “appalling waste of U.S. tax dollars,” the I.R.S., in playing Quentin Tarantino with your tax dollars, made video’s based on Star Trek and Gilligan’s Island for training purposes….

From The Hill –

The Internal Revenue Service says it regrets making two $60,000 training videos in 2010 that parodied the popular TV shows, “Star Trek” and “Gilligan’s Island.”
In the wake of congressional criticism of the two videos, the IRS said it has taken steps to make “wise use of taxpayer funds while ensuring a tone and theme appropriate for the nation’s tax system,” according to the Associated Press.
In October the head of human resources for the Department of Veterans Affairs resigned after an inspector general’s report found that the agency spent $6.1 million on two weeklong conferences, one of which included $49,516 to produce a parody video of the late-Gen. George S. Patton.
The six-minute “Star Trek” video made in Maryland was shown to agency employees at a conference in 2010. In the video, IRS workers are meticulously dressed as characters from the popular TV show and are flying a staged space craft towards the planet, “Notax.”
Lawmakers overseeing the IRS decided that the “Gilligan’s Island” video contained legitimate training value, but that the “Star Trek” video did not. They subsequently released the “Star Trek” video to the public, but have kept the “Gilligan’s Island” video private. (More…)