Yesterday three senators introduced legislation that would repeal the IRS’s use of private debt collectors.
On December 4, 2015, President Obama signed the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act (Pub. L. No. 114-94) into law—the first federal law in over a decade to provide long-term funding certainty for surface transportation infrastructure planning and investment. In addition to increased funding for transportation infrastructure the FAST Act also required the IRS to make use of its authority to hire outside private debt collectors to help it collect the billions of dollars owed to the United States by taxpayers that the IRS had been unable to take collection action against.
Since rolling out the program to utilize private debt collectors there has been a lot of bad press, including the New York Times article, about abuses by private debt collectors as well as the fact that the program is not actually making any money.
- Outside Collectors for IRS are Accused of Illegal Practices (Article)
- IRS Paid $20 Million to Collect $6.7 Million in Tax Debts (Article)
Stay tuned to see if this legislation goes anywhere. If you or someone you know has an IRS issue, contact us and we can help them get their issue resolved.
