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Washington, D.C.—When the American people fully realize the extent to which their sensitive tax information and personal data are going to be made available to private companies by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), they will be “outraged,” the leader of the union representing IRS employees told a noisy, crowded rally of union members today.

“The IRS and the government are doing nothing to spread the word about what is coming down the road” for taxpayers, President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) told several hundred NTEU members picketing outside IRS headquarters on Constitution Avenue at lunchtime today. The sign-carrying, chanting pickets filled the block virtually its entire length.

The rally—part of the NTEU’s annual Legislative Conference—was focused on the agency’s plan to hire private sector debt collectors to pursue tax debts in exchange for a bounty of up to 25 percent of the money they collect. The first contracts were to be signed today.

NTEU strongly opposes the plan as opening the door to the misuse of taxpayer information, including their Social Security numbers and private financial data; and has warned repeatedly of the likelihood of abuse of taxpayers by private sector debt collectors—which make up the most complained-about industry in America year after year.

In fact, more than 58,000 consumer complaints about debt collectors poured into the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) last year alone, Kelley told the rally, noting that the FTC itself has characterized that number as representing only a small percentage of the problems people have with this industry on an annual basis.

NTEU supports bipartisan legislation—H.R. 1621, introduced by Rep. Rob Simmons (R-CT) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD)—that would repeal the IRS’s authority to hire the debt collectors.

Using IRS employees is much more cost-effective, Kelley said, noting a recent private study that put the cost of collecting $100 by IRS employees at a mere 53 cents; she contrasted that with the $25 bounty the IRS is willing to pay private sector debt collectors to collect $100.

The union president used her rally remarks to remind the NTEU members that tax debt privatization was tried by the IRS a decade ago, with such poor results that a follow-up program was cancelled. And she called on them to “continue to fight this misguided proposal,” making the point strongly that the work of the federal government, at the IRS and other agencies as well, “should be done by federal employees.”

The NTEU leader has been out in front in the fight against continuing efforts by this administration to turn an increasing number of federal jobs—as many as one out of every two—over to private companies. Such contracting “devalues and disrespects the work of federal employees,” the NTEU leader said.

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing some 150,000 employees in 30 agencies and departments, including more than 90,000 in the IRS.