Home Media Center News Releases

Washington D.C. — Congressional support continues to grow for legislation in both the House and Senate that would put an end to a misguided program by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) of turning over personal and sensitive taxpayer information to private debt collectors.

In the House, more than 100 lawmakers have signed on to H.R. 695, introduced by Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), which would revoke the IRS’s authority to use private debt collectors. Similar legislation is pending in the Senate, where late last week the sponsors of S. 335 sent a letter to their Senate colleagues outlining a number of issues with the IRS program and seeking their support in ending it.

In the letter, Senators Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) detailed the decision by the IRS to drop the contract, for unexplained reasons, of one of the private debt collection companies it had hired for the program. The company was originally chosen by the agency “despite repeated warnings about the firm’s checkered past,” the senators wrote.

In calling for additional co-sponsors for their pending legislation, S. 335, which would effectively end the program, Senators Dorgan and Murray also pointed out that the IRS “has confirmed that dozens of complaints have already been lodged by taxpayers against the private debt collectors—including unauthorized disclosures, inappropriate questioning and a violation of the federal debt collection laws.” None of these problems are surprising,” they wrote, “and all could easily have been avoided by simply using trained, professional IRS employees.”

That supports the long-held position of President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), who has been leading the fight against the ill-advised IRS privatization program. “The more that members of Congress focus on the details of this program,” she said, “the more support builds for stopping it.”

The Dorgan-Murray letter noted the IRS previously tried such a program more than a decade ago, with disastrous results. They wrote that “proponents of the IRS’s use of private debt collectors argued that the initial phase of this program would give the IRS and policymakers an opportunity to see if the program would avoid the problems of the past. The evidence is in, and the answer is a resounding no!”

Additional congressional support for ending the private tax debt collection program comes from House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) In March, he announced that the committee was undertaking an investigation into the IRS program. In a letter to IRS Commissioner Mark Everson, Rep. Rangel said that “we understand that there have been numerous complaints from taxpayers about the tactics used by contract employees and instances of violations of law, including violations of the taxpayer privacy laws.”

Noting that he understands the IRS plans to enter into three to five additional contracts with private debt collectors later this year, Rep. Rangel told the commissioner of his intent to pass legislation to repeal or significantly modify agency authority for the program. “I strongly urge that you not proceed with the process of awarding new private tax collection contracts this year,” he wrote.

This call was echoed by President Kelley. “In light of the continuing controversy swirling around this program, the rational course for the IRS to take is to halt this program immediately,” she said. “It is time to return the work of the IRS to the professional and dedicated IRS workforce and provide the agency with the resources its needs to collect outstanding tax debts.”

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing some 150,000 employees in 31 agencies and departments.