House Committee Probes IRS Debt Collection Program

The IRS’s private debt collection program might just be more sinned against than sinning.  The program has committed no grievous actions against the tax debtors it is pursuing.  The FDCPA is alive and well for the collectors assigned to the tax cases.  And yet, still, Congress and the Senate can’t seem to help themselves from attacking the program at every turn.

They won’t be happy, it seems, until the program has been suspended, and the debt collection arm of the IRS returned to the already overburdened agency.

Most recently, an influential House committee wants the IRS to suspend new contract awards for it through year-end.  Rep. Charles B. Rangel, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, sent a letter Thursday to IRS Commissioner Mark Everson, which included complaints about the tactics used by the private collectors, "including violations of the taxpayer privacy laws."

The IRS, however, has plans to expand the debt collection program to as many as 10 companies in 2008 with a goal of collecting $1.4 billion over 10 years.  Provided, of course, that the program continues to exist past all of the attacks against it.