The original Captain Kirk is not happy following revelations that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) spent thousands of taxpayer dollars to produce a Star Trek parody video.
On Friday, the IRS admitted they spent $60,000 to make training videos that parodied TV shows Star Trek and Gilligan's Island, the Associated Press reported. The IRS videos were shown at a 2010 training conference and depict the spaceship set from Star Trek as well as characters like Spock. The parody plot, which includes a journey to the planet "No Tax," is explained in the video above; the full IRS video is below.
Actor William Shatner, who portrayed Captain James T. Kirk in the original Star Trek series, took to Twitter to share his disappointment with the agency.
So I watched that IRS video. I am appalled at the utter waste of US tax dollars.
— William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) March 26, 2013
Last Wednesday, U.S. House Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Charles Boustany, Jr. (R-La.) demanded in a letter that the IRS release a copy of the videos to the committee.
"Boustany has publicly requested that, in the interest of transparency, the IRS release the videos so that taxpayers can be assured that resources were used efficiently and in a manner keeping with the IRS’s core mission," the committee said in a statement.
In a statement to the AP, the IRS admitted that producing the Star Trek video was a mistake and said "a video of this type would not be made today."
"The IRS recognizes and takes seriously our obligation to be good stewards of government resources and taxpayer dollars," the IRS told the AP in a statement. "There is no mistaking that this video did not reflect the best stewardship of resources."
The videos were produced in the IRS' New Carrollton, Md., television production studio.
The news of the costly IRS expenditures comes just weeks before Americans face the April 15 deadline for filing federal tax returns.