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Washington, D.C.—The leader in the fight against an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) plan to turn over to private debt collectors the personal and sensitive information of some 2.6 million taxpayers today sharply criticized the agency for moving ahead with the program despite clear and mounting congressional opposition.

According to an agency message to IRS employees, on Aug. 31, the IRS will begin turning over the first 40,000 taxpayer files to three private sector debt collection companies which will receive a bounty of up to 24 percent of the money they collect.

The agency is moving ahead despite language approved by the House of Representatives in the fiscal 2007 Transportation-Treasury Appropriations bill preventing the use of any money to implement the program. Immediately following its passage, Rep. Steve Rothman (D-N.J.), author of the anti-debt collector amendment, called on the IRS Commissioner to delay the program. That was followed by 27 House members signing a bipartisan letter generated by Reps. Rob Simmons (R-Conn.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) calling on the IRS to halt the program.

“The arrogance of the IRS in pushing forward with this misguided and costly program in the face of congressional efforts to halt it is beyond belief,” said President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU). ”As more details are uncovered, it is increasingly apparent that this will be disastrous for taxpayers.”

President Kelley added: “Along with NTEU, opposition to this foolish endeavor has been apparent and vocal from dozens of members of Congress, from the National Taxpayer Advocate, from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration and from a variety of public interest groups. Clearly, all these parties see things wrong with this program that the IRS either fails to see or chooses to ignore—putting taxpayer information and rights at serious risk.”

Taxpayers whose cases are turned over to the debt collection companies will be informed of their new status via a letter from the IRS. When concerned taxpayers call the IRS, agency employees—in the message from IRS management—have been informed to limit their response to taxpayer questions to merely confirming that their accounts have been turned over to a private collector. The caller is then to be told to take up additional questions or concerns with the private debt collector, Kelley said.

“It is outrageous that IRS employees are being told to refuse to answer any questions posed by an American taxpayer about his or her taxes owed,” the NTEU leader said.

Further, she said, the IRS told employees that any taxpayer who doesn’t want his or her account to be handled by a private collector must so inform the private company in writing—with a copy to the IRS at a particular location, either Philadelphia or Kansas City.

“Just as NTEU predicted, this is going to be a confusing situation for impacted taxpayers, and a very costly mistake for the agency,” Kelley said.

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