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Washington, D.C.—If the White House’s proposed budget for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) were to become law, the agency “would be dealt a severe blow in its ability to carry out its critical mission for our nation,” the leader of the union representing tens of thousands of IRS employees said today.

“With a staggering tax gap of some $345 billion, an agency already short-staffed and a tax code that is becoming increasingly complex, this certainly is not the direction we should be going,” said President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU).

In the budget blueprint made public today, the White House proposed fiscal 2008 IRS funding at $11.095 billion—fully $546 million less than the $11.641 billion proposed by the independent IRS Oversight Board. The Board, established under the 1998 IRS Restructuring Act, has broad responsibilities dealing with IRS strategic planning, budgeting and other key matters.

President Kelley also sharply criticized the administration’s proposal for IRS funding on another vital front—agency staffing. The White House proposal calls for 92,814 full-time IRS employees in fiscal 2008; that would be 32 fewer employees than the 92,846 employees on the agency rolls at the end the last fiscal year on Sept. 30, 2006.

What’s more, the NTEU leader pointed out, the proposed number of employees in the coming fiscal year represents a drop of some 12,000 employees since the mid-1990s. “The case for additional staff is both clear and pressing,” President Kelley said, “and it is not just disappointing, but dangerous for our nation, that this administration refuses to see that or act on it.”

She promised that NTEU will be working diligently with key members of Congress during the appropriations process to secure adequate and appropriate funding for the IRS.

On a related matter, while the budget blueprint projects the three private debt collectors hired by the IRS will return some $46 million to the Treasury Department during the current fiscal year, they will share $11 million in commissions. NTEU has been leading the fight against this unwise and costly program.

“As I have said in a variety of forums, including congressional testimony,” President Kelley said, “if the IRS were appropriately funded and staffed, there would not only be no need to hire private debt collectors and subject taxpayer information to abuse, the money would be collected at a fraction of the cost.”

She added: “This giveaway to the private sector is nothing less than an outrage and a clear example of why such inherently government work as collecting taxes should remain in the hands of federal employees.” NTEU is strongly backing legislative efforts to repeal the IRS’s authority to hire private debt collectors—a course of action called for by the IRS’s own National Taxpayer Advocate.

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