Congressmen Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., and Rob Simmons,
R-Conn., have introduced the Taxpayer Protection Act
or 2005 to prevent the Internal Revenue Service from
hiring private companies to collect tax debts.
The legislation would prevent the IRS from disclosing
taxpayer information to non-IRS employees — and follows
a provision in a tax bill passed last fall allowing
the agency to contract out some of its tax collection
responsibilities, promising companies up to 25 percent
of what they recover.
“Giving unaccountable private contractors unfettered
access to Americans’ personal financial data poses a
risk that we just cannot afford,” said Van Hollen.
Simmons said taxpayers should have the peace of mind
that their assets and identity “will only be viewed by
those properly trained and accountable at the IRS.
With 26 million Americans finding themselves victims
of identity theft over the past 15 years, furnishing
more taxpayer data to dubious third-parties will only
increase the risk of wrongful disclosure of such data.”
An opponent of privatization in general, the National
Treasury Employees Union announced support for the act,
arguing that private tax collection increases the
risk that personal information could be compromised,
and “opens taxpayers to the worst abuses of the
collection industry.”
The union cited an earlier report from the Treasury
Inspector General for Tax Administration about a 1996
program to use private debt collectors that said IRS
contractors “blatantly circumvented IRS policies and
procedures even when security personnel identified
inappropriate practices.”
