Members of the National Treasury Employees Union — as part
of the union’s annual legislative conference — rallied outside
IRS headquarters recently to protest the agency’s decision to
outsource some tax collection activities to private contractors
and allow them to keep up to 25 percent of whatever they can get.
“The IRS and the government are doing nothing to spread the word
about what is coming down the road,” NTEU said that president
Colleen M. Kelley told several hundred members at a lunchtime rally.
The union — which represents about 90,000 IRS employees – wants
the agency to hire more tax collectors and says handing over
sensitive taxpayer information to the debt-collection industry
leaves taxpayers open to abuses.
The union says it costs under a dollar for IRS employees to
collect one hundred — far below 25 percent – but going after
only delinquent taxpayers would be more costly than NTEU’s
estimate.
Legislation introduced by Rep. Rob Simmons, R-Conn., and
Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., and currently pending in Congress would
repeal IRS authority to hire debt collectors.
