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New York—The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is making a serious mistake in significantly stepping back from its role in helping taxpayers meet their obligations under the nation’s tax laws, the leader of the union representing thousands of IRS employees told a large New York rally today.

“High-quality customer service work should play at least as important a role as enforcement of the tax laws,” President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) said at a well-attended rally of about 400 federal workers, many of whom carried signs reading “No Taxpayer Left Behind.” The rally at 26 Federal Plaza was organized by NTEU Chapter 47, which represents some 1,500 IRS employees.

The demonstration was held in an area referred to as the ‘upper plaza’ outside the Javits Building at 26 Federal Plaza—but only after NTEU successfully challenged in court the government’s refusal to grant the union a permit to conduct a rally in that area.

President Kelley called the government’s initial decision “an unconstitutional attempt to turn federal property into a ‘no speech zone.’” After NTEU’s testimony on its request for a preliminary injunction, a New York federal court judge strongly recommended the government settle the case.

NTEU Chapter 47 President Frank Heffler called the rally to protest a series of IRS decisions hurting both employees and the public, including agency plans to close a Taxpayer Assistance Center (TAC) right across the street from the rally site, at 290 Broadway. The IRS has announced plans to close seven of the 28 TACs in the state of New York as part of 68 sites slated for closure nationwide.

The TAC closures are part of an IRS effort to force taxpayers to turn to the Internet and toll-free telephone help lines for the tax help they need. But at the same time, the IRS has also announced plans to eliminate three telephone call sites in Boston, Chicago and Houston and cut back by 15 hours a week the time that telephone assistance is available to taxpayers.

President Kelley and President Heffler sharply criticized all the cutbacks as impacting severely those taxpayers who often need help the most—the elderly, low-income earners and those for whom English is not their first language.

Cutting customer service “will result in lower taxpayer compliance with an increasingly-complex tax code, and that will lead to even less revenue being collected,” Kelley said. “Clearly that makes no sense whatsoever.”

NTEU and Chapter 47 have been active in opposing not just the TAC and call site closings, but also IRS outsourcing efforts and its plan to turn over the collection of tax debts to private sector debt collectors, allowing these companies to retain a bounty of as much as 25 percent of the money they collect.

“Tax collection is an inherently governmental function,” said Chapter 47 President Heffler. “It does not belong in private hands, much less in the hands of debt collectors, who, year after year, make up the most complained-about industry in America.” He noted that a prior attempt by the IRS to use private sector debt collectors, in 1996, not only failed to generate the dollar return promised, it led to numerous abuses by the private contractors of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. He went on to state that IRS employees work under stringent rules of conduct and are held to the highest standards.

President Kelley called on Congress to approve legislation, H.R. 1621, that would revoke the authority of the IRS to hire private sector debt collectors.

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing some 150,000 employees in 30 agencies and departments, including some 94,000 in the IRS.