House Set for Vote on IRS Private Collection Bill

The U.S. House of Representatives will be voting on a bill Wednesday that would nullify the authorization Congress granted to the IRS in 2004 to enter into collection contracts with private firms.

The bill, H.R. 3056, will be considered by the House Rules Committee late this afternoon and is expected to reach the floor Wednesday for debate and a vote. The Rules Committee will determine how much time will be spent on debating the bill on the House floor.

After the bill was scheduled for consideration, interest groups on both sides began contacting their memberships in calls to action. ACA International, the association for collection professionals, sent an email out to their membership last night urging action on the bill. The message included tips on how to contact members of Congress and even a form letter than can be faxed to Representatives. The National Treasury Employees Union, which has opposed the private debt collection program since it was conceived, went a step further in their request to its membership. On their web site, the NTEU posted call scripts and talking points members could use in contacting their Representatives.

Ever since it was approved by the House Ways and Means Committee in July, H.R. 3056 – the so-called “Tax Collection Responsibility Act of 2007” – has represented the most credible threat to the IRS private debt collection initiative since the program began. Specifically, it would remove authorization for the IRS to use private collectors immediately ("House Committee Votes to Repeal IRS Private Collection Program," 7/19).

Although the Committee vote was 23-18 in favor of the bill, there was an indication that some members in the full House might consider the program on its merit rather than along party lines. One Democrat on the Committee, John Tanner from Tennessee, broke with his party peers and voted against the bill in July. His spokesman told insideARM.com at the time, “The Congressman feels that with proper safeguards, this program is a reasonable approach to collecting back taxes for the IRS.”

This type of consideration is what opponents of the bill are looking for. Dan Drummond, spokesman for the Tax Fairness Coalition – a group representing collection agencies working on the contract – told insideARM.com this morning that there is some support for the program in the House; at the very least, there is support for further review of the program.

“This program has been lumped in with other programs in the government outsourcing debate, and we feel that is unfortunate,” said Drummond. “When you really examine this program, it is a true public-private partnership in that no IRS jobs are being displaced.”

Even if the bill passes a vote in the full House Wednesday, there is a long way to go before the program dies, according to Drummond. The Senate would then take up the bill and support for the IRS program in the Senate has been stronger than in the House.