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Washington, D.C.—Despite assertions to the contrary, the use of private sector debt collectors to pursue tax debts is a less cost-effective, less efficient and less successful method of collecting taxes than using the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) employees hired for that inherently governmental function.

That was the view expressed today by President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), who took sharp issue with the recommendation of the Republican Policy Committee that the use of private collection companies be given ‘a chance.’

“This has been tried once before, on a pilot basis, and the results were so bad that a follow-up program was cancelled,” President Kelley said. The NTEU president has been leading the fight against the IRS program to privatize tax debt collections.

“The best way to address the growing tax gap,” she said, “is by providing the IRS with the personnel and resources to perform their jobs.” She promised that NTEU would continue to press Congress to provide these key elements for the agency—and push the agency to use the assets in the most effective manner possible.

The IRS has thus far turned over thousands of cases to three private companies in a program that began last September, and intends to contract with as many as 10 or more such companies over the next year or so.

President Kelley noted a number of negative aspects of the program, including substantial risks to taxpayers’ personal and sensitive information and a recent GAO report, using IRS cost projections, that found that costs, including the bounty of up to 24 percent of the money they collect paid to the private companies, will far outstrip government revenue. In addition, Kelley said IRS Commissioner Mark Everson testified twice before Congress that IRS employees can perform the tasks at a far less cost than contractors.

Moreover, Kelley said, the Republican policy statement overlooks the miserable record of federal agencies—including the IRS—of oversight of its contractors. “It is one thing to say, as the policy group did, that the private collectors will have to adhere to numerous safeguards designed to protect taxpayer rights—and quite another to trust the IRS to see that is done.”

If fact, she said, the IRS admitted not long ago that it doesn’t yet—even though the program is underway—have in place criteria designed to gauge its success.”

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