Think Progress – by Luke Barnes
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) spent millions of dollars over the past financial year to contract private debt collectors that targeted some of Americas poorest citizens for unpaid taxes and only recovered a small fraction of the funds they were supposed to return to the agency, a new report released on Wednesday found.
The report, by the independent Taxpayer Advocate Service, found that the debt collectors had cost the IRS $20 million but had only brought in $6.7 million — less than one percent of the total amount targeted for collection. In some cases, the private agencies received commissions for work they hadn’t actually carried out.
But perhaps more damning was the Americans that the debt collection firms targeted. Congress directed the beleaguered IRS to use private contractors in 2015 in an attempt to make some headway into the $450 billion of unpaid taxesowed to the federal government. The contractors, however, were expected to adhere to the IRS rule that is supposed to ensure that taxpayers “have adequate means to provide for basic expenses.” But as USA Today reports, of the 4,141 taxpayers assigned to the private contractors, 19 percent had a medium income below the federal poverty level and an additional 25 percent had income below 250 percent of the federal poverty level — a common indicator of low income.
The report concluded that the use of private debt collectors was one of the agency’s “most serious problems.”
“The program as implemented has not generated net revenues and results in the IRS improperly paying commissions to [private collection agencies] for work the did not perform,” the report read. “In the meantime, the most vulnerable taxpayers are making payments and entering into installment agreements they cannot afford, according to the IRS’s own measures.” The report also added that the IRS is aware that’s it’s paying debt collection agencies commissions for work already carried out by the IRS but has “no plans to change its procedures.”
Republicans have consistently advocated for using private companies to collect money owed to the IRS. As the New York Times reported, when Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin was asked about private debt collectors to recoup money owed to the government during his confirmation hearing he said “it seems like a very obvious thing to do.”
Democrats also bear responsibility for the shoddy state of the IRS’ funding — since 2010 its funding has shrunk by a fifth. A good example of the IRS’ funding woes can be seen with its telephone assistance program, which the Taxpayer Advocate Service described as a “dying relic.” The agency currently only expects to be able to answer half of the 95 million calls it receives per year.
https://thinkprogress.org/irs-private-debt-collectors-47da9d18ab06/
Any of these people being targeted by debt collectors that have NOT received a federal benefit in some form should be taken off their stinking list immediately!
This entire country’s “servants” are criminal!
http://losthorizons.com/
$20 million to recoup $6.7 million….. and these idiots are in charge of revenue.
I guess no one capable of arithmetic wanted the job.
“The report concluded that the use of private debt collectors was one of the agency’s “most serious problems.”
THE most serious problem being… THEY’RE TOO DAMN COWARDLY TO COLLECT IT THEMSELVES!!!!!
pussies
I’d have to say that was a pretty good profit margin for the IRS.
Considering that the 20 mil was free stolen money.
I would gladly pay the IRS $7 for every $20 they pay to me. They would even be getting a better return than they did from these cretins. I would be willing to do this until the day I go home to Heaven, and would teach my children the same “skill” that they could use for the rest of their lives.
Howzzat?
Brought to you by the same govt. that wants poor medicaid folks to go back to work when most low paying jobs are going to illegals (off the books no doubt), or robots, which work for free. And the same govt. that will run out of social security and medicare funds in ten years because most of the low paying jobs are going to illegals and robots, and good paying jobs are getting harder to come by because of H1-B visas and yes, robots (who are being built to become teachers, medics, managers, etc.).