The Internal Revenue Service's Use of Private Debt Collection Agencies: Current Status and Issues for Congress

Publication Date: January 2006

Publisher: Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service

Author(s):

Research Area: Banking and finance

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Abstract:

Under the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 (AJCA, P.L. 108-357), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has acquired for the second time in its history the legal authority to hire private debt collection agencies (PCAs) to assist in the collection of certain individual tax debt. The grant of authority grew out of a proposal made by the Bush Administration in its budget request for the IRS in both FY2004 and FY2005.

This report focuses on IRS's current plan for hiring PCAs to collect delinquent individual taxes and the policy issues it raises. It begins with an examination of the scope of IRS's authority to use PCAs under the AJCA and concludes with a discussion of the main issues for Congress as it oversees IRS's efforts to implement and manage the private tax debt collection initiative. The report will be updated to reflect significant legislative action and new developments related to the initiative.

Under section 6303 of the Internal Revenue Code (IRC), the IRS is authorized to hire PCAs to assist in the collection of certain delinquent individual tax debt under rules intended to protect the rights of taxpayers and the confidentiality of taxpayer information. Basically, the IRS may use PCAs only to locate and contact taxpayers with an unpaid tax liability who have no outstanding disputes with the agency over the amount of taxes owed, and to arrange for the payment of those taxes. PCAs awarded collection contracts are required to follow a narrowly prescribed procedure in contacting the delinquent taxpayers assigned to them.

The Bush Administration's proposal to allow the IRS to hire PCAs provoked a heated debate in the 108th Congress over whether or not the proposal served the public interest, a debate that continues to simmer. Proponents argue that a large and growing inventory of delinquent individual tax debt undermines the public's confidence in the fairness of the tax system and encourages honest taxpayers to engage in tax evasion. In their view, since Congress has not provided the IRS with the resources required to shrink this inventory, it makes sense to authorize the IRS to hire private firms to collect this tax debt in a manner that protects taxpayer rights. Critics retort that the collection of taxes should not be outsourced because such a task is inherently governmental, and that it would be more cost effective to give the IRS the resources needed to pursue readily collectible individual tax debt than to hire PCAs to do the task, and that PCAs cannot be trusted to protect taxpayer rights.

Although critics arguably lost the first round of the debate, they have not ceased their efforts to derail the IRS's private tax debt collection initiative. In the current Congress, H.R. 1583 and H.R. 1621 would repeal the IRS's authority to enter into contracts with PCAs. Although the prospects in the current Congress for enactment of such a measure appear less than promising, the fundamental concerns underlying the two bills may lead Congress to pay close attention to critical aspects of the initiative as it unfolds and to re-examine periodically the question of whether it is promoting the public interest.