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Washington, D.C.—The leader in the fight against Internal Revenue Service (IRS) efforts to hire private sector debt collectors to pursue tax debts said today she welcomes evidence of growing concern in Congress about the cost and impact on taxpayers of that program, and of the companion need for greater resources for the IRS.

President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) pointed to two recent events as evidence that as more information becomes widely-known about the IRS plan to privatize tax debt collection, the less attractive the idea appears.

“More and more members of Congress are hearing from their constituents about their concerns for the privacy of their personal information,” Kelley said. “These concerns will continue to grow.”

One event occurred yesterday when IRS Commissioner Mark Everson, appearing before the House Ways and Means Committee, was asked about the relative costs of using IRS employees to collect tax debts versus hiring private debt collection companies to do so.

The private companies will be paid a bounty of up to 25 percent of the money they collect—or $25 to collect $100 in taxes. NTEU has long maintained that IRS employees can do the work for far less, returning a much higher percentage of the money back to the U.S. Treasury. Commissioner Everson, for the second time in as many weeks, acknowledged that NTEU is correct saying that in the event the IRS had sufficient resources, it would be less expensive to use agency employees than to farm out the work to debt collectors. NTEU has consistently called for additional funding for the IRS for a variety of programs, including pursuing tax debts.

The other event occurred Wednesday night on the floor of the House. Rep. Steven Rothman (D-NJ), who has previously criticized the cost of tax debt privatization, recounted an exchange he had earlier this week with Commissioner Everson during a House subcommittee session on the fiscal 2007 Transportation, Treasury Appropriations bill.

Rep. Rothman said he reviewed with the commissioner the financial parameters of the tax debt privatization program, then asked him why IRS was planning to use private debt collectors when it would cost so much less to have IRS employees do the work.

The congressman quoted Everson’s response as indicating that the tax debt privatization program fits in with the administration’s efforts to reduce the size of government; and he further quoted Everson as agreeing with his statement that “the bottom line is, you are wasting money.”

The tax debt collection plan has been delayed; two losing private sector bidders have challenged the IRS’s award of contracts to other private firms. Their protests filed with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) means an automatic delay of up to 100 days.

In the meantime, NTEU continues to press for congressional approval of H.R. 1621, a bipartisan bill which would revoke the authority of the IRS to hire private sector debt collectors.

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