Senate Dems to IRS Regarding Private Collectors: It's On!

by Patrick Lunsford, CollectionIndustry.com

A cadre of Democratic Senators implored IRS commissioner Mark Everson yesterday to cease and desist any activities that may lead to outsourcing delinquent tax collection to private collection agencies until the Senate officially considers the matter.

The private tax collection program, approved by Congress in 2004 and slated to begin this week, has faced hurdles at every conceivable point. The most recent obstacle has yet to be resolved: in June, the House passed a bill blocking funding for the program in fiscal year 2007, which begins in October. This is the Senators? main point of contention.

In three separate letters to Everson, Senators Patty Murray (D-WA), Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and Edward Kennedy (D-MA) issued strongly-worded warnings to Everson to halt the program until the Senate can vote on the House bill.

Not since Zell Miller famously challenged Chris Matthews to a duel has such direct language been used to prove a political point. In political parlance, the letters were a direct retort to what the triad saw as an effrontery to Congressional power.

“You are proceeding with this effort despite an explicit vote by the House Appropriations Committee prohibiting you from moving forward with it,” Murray wrote in her letter. “You should suspend your efforts immediately so that the full Senate and the Appropriations Conference Committee can review this proposal.” Kennedy?s letter also echoed the notion that the program should be immediately suspended while the Senate chews it over in this election year.

Dorgan went a step further and took an offensive posture, saying that he will introduce legislation that aims to cut funding for the program, just as colleagues of his in the House did. He said in his letter that the whole program was ?a really bad idea,? noting that “everybody needs to pay the taxes they owe, but if they don’t, it ought to be professional Internal Revenue Service employees, not private debt collectors, who go after them.?